A method to estimate the terrestrial component of ambient dose equivalent rate from EURDEP routine monitoring data to improve the European Geogenic Radon Map

A method to estimate the terrestrial component of ambient dose equivalent rate is presented. Data of ambient dose equivalent rate were taken from the EURDEP database. 54 stations from the Slovenian monitoring network were chosen to apply the method, and preliminary results are reported. The method is based on the identification of peaks and the corresponding valley values in time series of ambient dose equivalent rate by smoothing and applying threshold values. Geological information and detector type are used in an ANOVA analysis, to evaluate the part of variability which can be attributed to those. Applying this method to all suitable EURDEP stations would lead to a database of terrestrial gamma dose rate which covers almost all of Europe. It can be used to create a map of the terrestrial gamma dose rate background and, in a next step, possibly be used as additional predictor of the geogenic radon potential, which is the quantity underlying the European Geogenic Radon Map, currently under development.JRC.E.8-Nuclear securit