Environmental Radioactivity Monitoring and Assessment of Excess Lifetime Cancer Risk to People in Demra Thana, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract

Objective: The quality of life is influenced by the environment quality and one of the major factors that require a continuous monitoring is the level of radiation. Radiation protection is required to minimize the health effects due to radiation. It is essential to know real-time gamma radiation dose rates and calculation of annual effective dose of a country in order to generate the baseline database.
 Methods: The radiation monitoring was performed using real-time portable digital radiation monitoring device. This real-time digital portable radiation monitoring device meets all European CE standards as well as the American “FCC 15 standard”. The portable radiation monitoring device was placed at 1 meter above the ground on tripod and data acquisition time for each monitoring point (MP) was 1 hour. 35 MPs were selected for collection of radiation dose rates at different outdoor locations in Demra Thana, Dhaka from October-November 2019.
 Results: The measured dose rates due to natural radionuclides were ranged from 0.133 ± 0.022 µSv.h-1 to 0.251 ± 0.016 µSv.h-1 with an average of 0.187 ± 0.032 µSv.h-1. The annual effective dose to the population from outdoor environmental gamma radiation was varied from 0.232 ± 0.038 mSv to 0.440 ± 0.029 mSv with an average of 0.328 ± 0.057 mSv. Excess Lifetime Cancer Risk (ELCR) are also calculated which is ranged from 0.9×10-3 to 1.7×10-3 with an average value of 1.3×10-3, which is 4.5 times greater than world average of 0.29×10-3.
 Conclusion: This kind of study is required to detect the presence of natural radionuclides and artificial radionuclides (if any) releasing from nuclear and radiological facilities in the country or from neighboring countries for normal operations or in case of accident/incident. From this study, it can be concluded that there is no radiation burden to the environment due to man-made sources.