Indoor radon activity concentrations and effective dose rates at houses in the Afyonkarahisar province of Turkey

Abstract

An indoor radon activity concentration survey has been carried out at 46 houses in Afyonkarahisar province of Turkey using CR-39 passive nuclear track detectors four times during a 1-year period. The measured values ranged from 21 to 2494 Bq m−3, whereas the calculated average values were in the range of 33.75 and 1614.26 Bq m−3. On the other hand, the calculated annual geometric mean value was 186.50 ± 10.55 Bq m−3 and it was 136.07 ± 8.76 Bq m−3 when only the living areas of the houses considered. The corresponding annual effective dose rates were obtained to be in the range of 0.53 and 25.45 mSv year−1. The resulting annual effective dose equivalent calculated from the geometric mean was 2.94 ± 0.17 mSv year−1 for Afyonkarahisar province, while the annual effective dose in the living areas of the houses was obtained to be 2.15 ± 0.14 mSv year−1. According to the floor levels, the concentration value was found to be between 86.60 ± 7.80 Bq m−3 and 291.80 ± 14.60 Bq m−3. The present results show an exponential decrease with the distance from the soil having the correlation coefficient of R2 = 0.988.