Mapping the geogenic radon potential in Germany

Abstract

Mapping the geogenic radon potential in Germany is a research project initiated by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Conservation and Reactor Safety. The project was aimed to develop a standard methodology for the estimation of a geogenic radon potential and to apply this method to map the region of Germany as an overview for planning purposes. The regionalisation results from a distance-weighted interpolation of the site-specific values of radon concentration in soil gas and in situ gas permeability of soils on a regular grid considering the corresponding geological units. The map of Germany in a scale of 1:2 million is based on the radon concentration in soil gas as an estimator of the geogenic radon potential assuming the ‘worst case’ of uniform highest permeability. The distribution is subdivided into categories of low (<10 kBq/m 3), medium (10–100 kBq/m 3), increased (100–500 kBq/m 3) and high (>500 kBq/m 3) radon concentration. High values occur especially in regions with granites and basement rocks of Paleozoic age, and are proven by measurements in 0.03% of the total area. Many of these regions are also known for their enhanced indoor values. The class with increased values takes a portion of 7.86% and likewise occurs mainly in regions with outcrops of folded and metamorphic basement, but also of some Meso- and Cenozoic sediments with increased uranium contents and/or higher emanation coefficients. For 67.3% of the country, the radon concentration is classified as ‘medium’, and an assignment to specific geological units cannot be made at the map scale considered. Low radon contents, where protective measures against radon are usually not considered, are found in the geologically rather homogeneous part of northern Germany with unconsolidated Cenozoic sediments, covering approximately 25% of the total country. It is of course not possible to predict the indoor radon concentration of single houses from these maps, because construction type and structural fabric of houses are essentially governing the extent to which subsoil radon potential affects the indoor concentration. Besides this, in places with site-specific geochemical, structural and soil-physical properties, local radon anomalies may occur which were not recorded in the course of the wide-meshed screening study.