Indoor External Radiation Risk in Densely Populated Regions of Southern Nigeria

It is known that certain types of building materials contain significant concentrations of natural radionuclides; consequently, exposure to indoor background radiation is from the combined radioactivity from the soil as well as building materials; indoor exposures therefore have higher radiation haz...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Earth systems and environment 2018-05, Vol.2 (1), p.95-102
Main Authors: Ife-Adediran, Oluwatobi O., Uwadiae, Iyobosa B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Background radiation
Building materials
Buildings
Climate
Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts
Construction materials
Data collection
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Earth System Sciences
Environmental Science and Engineering
Exposure
Geography
Health risks
In situ measurement
Indoor environments
Ionizing radiation
Lung cancer
Monitoring/Environmental Analysis
Original Article
Outdoors
Population density
Radiation
Radiation hazards
Radiation measurement
Radioactivity
Radioisotopes
Raw materials
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:It is known that certain types of building materials contain significant concentrations of natural radionuclides; consequently, exposure to indoor background radiation is from the combined radioactivity from the soil as well as building materials; indoor exposures therefore have higher radiation hazard potentials than outdoor exposures in this regard and hence, need to be monitored. In this paper, an evaluation of background ionizing radiation from different buildings in Lagos and Ibadan, Southwestern Nigeria was carried out to determine the exposure rate of the general public to indoor ionizing radiation. 630 in situ measurements from the different buildings were taken using a Geiger Muller counter (model GQ-320 Plus). The indoor dose rates (i.e., 50–120 nGy/h) were within the world average values while the Annual Effective Dose for most of the buildings were above the world average AED for indoor gamma exposure from building materials. The mean AED for Lagos and Ibadan due to indoor exposures were 0.37 and 0.39 mSv/y with Excess Lifetime Cancer Risk of 0.99E−3 and 1.05E−3, respectively.
ISSN:2509-9426
2509-9434
DOI:10.1007/s41748-018-0039-9