期刊
RADIATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL BIOPHYSICS
卷 46, 期 1, 页码 53-59出版社
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s00411-006-0085-9
关键词
-
One of the three goals of the United Nations for sustainable food security is to ensure that all people have access to sufficient, nutritionally adequate, and safe food. Decades of tin mining in the Bitsichi area of the Jos Plateau, Nigeria, have left a legacy of polluted water supplies, impoverished agricultural land, and soil containing abnormally high levels of naturally occurring radioactive elements. In order to ascertain the radiological food safety of the population, different crops that constitute the major food nutritive requirements were collected directly across farmlands in the area. The activity concentrations of Ra-226, Th-228, and K-40 were determined in the food and soil samples using gamma-ray spectrometry. Additionally, in situ gamma dose rate measurements were performed on the farms using a pre-calibrated survey meter. The corresponding activity concentrations in the food crops ranged from below detection limit (BDL) to 684.5 Bq kg(-1) for K-40, from BDL to 83.5 Bq kg(-1) for Ra-226, and from BDL to 89.8 Bq kg(-1) for Th-228. Activity concentrations of these radionuclides were found to be lower in cereals than in tubers and vegetables. As for the soil samples, activity concentrations of these radionuclides varied from BDL to 166.4 Bq kg(-1), from 10.9 to 470.6 Bq kg(-1), and from 122.7 to 2,189.5 Bq kg(-1) for K-40, Ra-226, and Th-228, respectively. Average external gamma dose rates were found to vary across the farms from 0.50 +/- 0.01 to 1.47 +/- 0.04 mu Sv h(-1). Due to past mining activities, the soil radioactivity in the area has been modified and the concentration level of the investigated natural radionuclides in the food crops has also been enhanced. However, the values obtained suggest that the dose from intake of these radionuclides by the food crops is low and that harmful health effects are not expected.
作者
我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。
推荐
暂无数据