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Health Risk Assessment of Radionuclides in Soil and Sediments of some Selected Areas of Pindiga, Nigeria |
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PP: 95-103 |
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doi:10.18576/jrna/050203
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Author(s) |
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Muhammad Hassan,
Yakubu H. Ngadda,
Aliyu Adamu,
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Abstract |
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| The knowledge of the concentrations and distributions of the radionuclides have common environmental concern along with the health hazards to human beings, animals as well as aquatic life. In this study, the Gamma-ray spectrometry technique has been employed to determine the activity concentrations of 238U, 232Th and 40K in 5 soil and sediment samples of selected areas of Pindiga, using Sodium Iodide-Thallium Gamma Spectrometry, NaI(Tl) detector. From the obtained results, the measured activity concentration of 40K vary from 124.3565 Bq/kg to 195.8387 Bq/kg with an average value of 155.9953 Bq/kg, the concentration of 226Ra vary from 27.2052 Bq/kg to 62.0805 Bq/kg with an average value of 40.79578 Bq/kg and the concentration of 232Th vary from 12.0709 to 45.9638 Bq/kg with an average value of 31.2664 Bq/kg. The average world average activity concentration of 40K, 226Ra and 232Th are 400 Bq/kg, 35 Bq/kg and 30 Bq/kg respectively. The results showed that the activity concentration of 40K in the study area is below the reference level assigned by United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) while for 226Ra and 232Th are higher than the references levels. These results are of great importance for exploring the health risks due to activity concentrations of radionuclides in soil and in sediments and may pave the road to a baseline for future changes in environmental radioactivity due to naturally occurring radioactive materials and human activities.
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