Measurements of indoor radon concentrations in schools in some cities of North Albania

Abstract

In this work are reported the results of the indoor radon concentration obtained in a preliminary survey involving 30 schools located in some cities in the regions of Durres, Lezha, Shkoder and Kukes. The indoor radon concentrations are found to vary from 31 to 633 Bq m−3 with an arithmetic mean of 136 ± 113 Bq m−3. The statistical distribution of indoor radon concentrations (have a positive skewness of 3) showed a close to lognormal, with a geometrical mean of 111 +93-51 Bq m−3 (at 1 uncertainty calculated from the geometric standard deviation equal to 1.8). Considering the concentration to be representative of the year, the calculated annual effective dose rate was found to be 1.7 mSv y−1 for workers and 1.3 for public. However, the annual effective dose rate was found to be highly variable from 0.5 to 9.7 mSv y−1. Therefore, these results highlighted the necessity to increase the control in workplaces with high occupancy (like, schools, kindergartens and hospitals) to ensure protection against exposure to the public as well as to the staff working inside.