Review on studies in natural background radiation

Abstract

The environment around us is radioactive due to background radiation emitted from the sky, earth's crust, food, water, and building materials. The human body gets exposed to radiation doses of about 82%, which are out of control; they arise from background radiation sources such as terrestrial, cosmic, and exposure to internal radiation. The background dose from cosmic radiation depends on the altitude, and regions with high altitude have high radiation doses. Natural radioactivity is present in the earth and is present in the different environment geological formations in the rocks and soils. Gamma radiation emitted from naturally occurring radioisotopes, such as 40K and the radionuclides from the 232Th and 238U series and their decay products which exist as trace levels in all ground formations, represents the main external source of irradiation to the human body. Their concentrations in rocks, soils, and sands depend on the local geology of each region in the world. Naturally occurring radioactive materials have terrestrial-origin radionuclides since the creation of the earth. The dose rate of background radiation increases because of the existence of some quarries and springs in some regions which are called high-level background radiation regions. The type of construction materials used in houses can be affecting the dose rate of background radiations. Study of radioactivity in the environment is important to monitor the levels of radiation to which human is exposed directly or indirectly. Recently, several international studies have been done and different values were measured. In this article, a review and literature survey of background radiations such as terrestrial, cosmic, and food radiation was carried out.