Reanalysis of residential radon surveys in China from 1980 to 2019

Abstract

A study on the published historic data of the residential radon concentration was carried out in order to provide a systematic retrospect and the confluent analysis of the investigations from 1980 to 2019 in China. A new database was established by collecting the results of nearly all radon surveys reported in China. A total of 129 surveys on residential radon, covering 147 cities with the sampling size of 72,295 were collected into the data pool for secondary analysis. The results from different decades confirmed the rapid increase trend of residential radon concentration in China. The geographical coverage, the sampling density and the geographic distribution of sampling sites of these surveys were discussed. The analysis on the local data sequences indicated the average increasing rate of residential radon concentration for 28 Chinese cities was estimated to be 0.80 Bq·m−3·a−1 in last 40 years. The results in this study provided the overall expression of the radon investigations in China and were expected to be benefit to the radon-related studies in the future.