External dose-rates for natural gamma emitters in soils from an agricultural land in West Anatolia

The surveys of natural gamma-emitting radionuclides in soils from three basins of West Anatolia intensively used for agricultural purposes were conducted during 1998-2003. In the present study, part of the survey, the activity concentrations of 238U, 232Th and 40K in the soil samples from 43 sites distributed all over the agricultural land known as Büyük Menderes basin were determined by scintillation gamma spectrometry. The average activity concentrations and ranges of the relevant radionuclides in the soils were as follows: 238U was 29 (7-84); 232Th, 22 (10-48) and 40K, 464 (100-864) Bq kg -1. The corresponding absorbed dose rates in air from all those radionuclides were in the range of 17-81 nGy h-1 with a mean value of 46 nGy h-1 and did not exceed the world-wide average values. All dosimetric calculations were performed based on the guidance of UNSCEAR 2000 report [1]. © 2009 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary.Acknowledgement The investigation was in part supported by the Science, Technology, Research and Application Centre of Ege University and The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey under the following Projects, 2003 C¸ SUM 001 and YDABCAG-583. The author is grateful to Dr. Özlem Karadeniz for professional advice on several aspects of the statistical analysis and to the colleagues for precious help with the processes involved. --National Council for Scientific Research: YDABCAG-58