Abstract
Radionuclides are found in different media including, soils, air, water, plants, vegetables, and in fruits etc. These radionuclides and their isotopes contaminate the environmentand could cause deleterious effect on human beings when ingested or inhaled. The cocoa plantation is a new plantation developed two years ago in the State for resource management and enhanced cocoa production. In situ measurement of the background ionising radiation was conducted with Radex (1212) radiation survey meterwhich measured background ionising radiation level in micro Seviert per hour. The measured values were converted to annual equivalent dose rate and annual effective dose. The mean background ionizing radiation (BIR) measured was obtained as 0.083µSv/hr and a mean annual BIR of 0.727mSv/yr. The obtained mean annual BIR obtained is lower than the worldwide BIRof 2.4 mSv/yr. The annual equivalent dose rate of radiation obtained in the plantation was ranged between 0.1261 to 0.2067mSv/yr with a mean value of 0.1454 mSv/yr. The mean annual effective dose was 0.1015 mSv/yr and lower than the recommended 1 mSv/yr as a safety limit for the public. Therefore regulatory controls are not necessary for now as this is a new plantation.
Highlights
Our environment is known to be continuously bombarded with ionising radiation from terrestrial and artificial sources, with its effect on human beings and environment as it continuously interact with it
It is established from various studies that these naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) are present in building materials such as, stones, sand, gravel, cement, concrete, brick, tiles, wood, gypsum, granites etc [4, 5], clay soils an driver sediments [6, 7] established that vegetation contains traces of radionuclides and even in timbers [9]
It is expected that the application of mechanized system of farming, tilling the soils, scrapping of the top soils will continuously bring out the NORMs accumulated in the soils
Summary
Our environment is known to be continuously bombarded with ionising radiation from terrestrial and artificial sources, with its effect on human beings and environment as it continuously interact with it. The terrestrial sources are rocks, soils, plants, water and air and vegetations [1].The naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) found in soils and rocks are mostly 40K, 235Th, 238Uand 228Ra and their associated radioisotopes. Could be transferred to plants which act as one of the paths through which radioactivity and radiation get to man It is established from various studies that these NORM are present in building materials such as, stones, sand, gravel, cement, concrete, brick, tiles, wood, gypsum, granites etc [4, 5], clay soils an driver sediments [6, 7] established that vegetation contains traces of radionuclides and even in timbers [9]. Natural radioactivity concentration have been measured in vegetables, fruit, medicinal plants and its associated committed effective dose due the ingestion of the plants determined [12]
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