Abstract
ABSTRACT For thousands of years, water has been the focus of experimentation toward solving the challenges associated with human water supply, navigation, irrigation, and sanitation. The use of tracers to study water resources is an efficient approach that can facilitate the modeling of many hydrological scenarios. The goal of this paper is to show results of research that tracked the presence of Rn-222, a natural tracer, in the surface waters of a small watercourse in southeastern part of Brazil. RAD 7, which is an electronic and portable radon detector, was the main instrument used in this survey. We analyzed 117 water samples and converted the radon activity results to effective radiation doses with respect to the hypothetical human consumption of these waters. We also analyzed the sediments of the watercourse. The obtained data showed that the radon activity in the studied waters varies between 0.52-76.96 Bq/m3. We determined the effective dose of all samples to be less than 1 mSv y−1, and its consumption to present no risk to human health. The existence of connections between surface and subsurface waters in the stream is possible, and radon peaks may indicate the existence of discharge zones into the surface water body.
Highlights
A tracer can be defined as any substance or particle that can be used to follow, either punctually or continuously, the behavior of a particular system or component, such as water flow in an underground or open environment (DAVIS et al, 1980)
From a total of 117 water samples, all of the effective dose values from the ingestion of radon are much smaller than 0.1 mSv y−1
The presence of Rn-222 in the surface waters of the Matinha stream indicates a possible connection between surface and subsurface waters
Summary
A tracer can be defined as any substance or particle (chemical or biological) that can be used to follow, either punctually or continuously, the behavior of a particular system or component, such as water flow in an underground or open environment (DAVIS et al, 1980). Tracers are very useful tools for investigating many processes, and can be very helpful in clarifying many natural phenomena. According to the scenario under study, different kinds of tracers could be used, including radioactive, chemical, fluorescent, and biological ones. The science of hydrology, along with many other research areas, routinely uses tracers to solve problems. Examples include the use of viruses as tracers to study residence times in aquifers (HUNT; BORCHARDT; BRADBURY, 2014), and the use of natural tracers to track groundwater flow in a mining area (COZMA et al, 2016). Tracers have been used in the management of a nuclear site, for the protection of water resources, in simulations of a hypothetical near-surface repository for low-level radioactive waste (TESTONI; LEVIZZARI; DE SALVE, 2015), and in the evaluation of environmental impacts caused by the bottom discharges of a small hydro power plant (FERREIRA et al, 2013)
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