Estimating the relation between radon concentrations in dwellings and schools; on the example of data from the Balkan region, South East Europe

Bossew, Peter and Zunic, Zora S. and Bochicchio, Francesco and Carpentieri, Carmela and Venoso, Gennaro and Antignani, Sara and Stojanovska, Zdenka and Vaupotic, Janja and Curguz, Zoran and Kolaz, P and Veselinovic, Nenad and Celikovic, Igor and Ujic, P. (2014) Estimating the relation between radon concentrations in dwellings and schools; on the example of data from the Balkan region, South East Europe. In: The 9th International Symposium on the Natural Radiation Environment (NRE-IX), 22-26 Sept 2014, Hirosaki, Japan.

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Abstract

Given its relevance as hazard to human health, today almost unanimously accepted, indoor Rn is increasingly subject to regulation with the purpose of reducing the risk. While so far, investigations were mostly focused on domestic indoor Rn, attention has been extended to working environments, as people spend good (or bad) part of their life in offices, schools, shops, factories and other workplaces. In the recently issued European Basic Safety Standards (BSS 2014) the same maximum reference levels for indoor Rn concentration, long-term mean 300 Bq/m³, were therefore set for dwellings and workplaces. Many national and regional indoor surveys exist for dwellings, but only a few for schools and kindergartens and little for other workplaces. In particular schools are given increasing attention because they are workplaces for students and teachers alike, and avoiding unnecessary risk to children is naturally seen as an especially important objective.
It must be assumed that buildings on top of a ground with the same radon potential, but with different building characteristics and usage patterns, as is typically the case for dwellings and schools, have systematically different indoor Rn concentrations. Although this is well accepted, little is known about how these differences can be quantified, and what their extent is.
We show on indoor Rn datasets of schools and dwellings from several regions in South-East Europe how such relations can be estimated and give results. These can be used for identifying regions in which one may decide to allocate resources preferentially for intensified surveys or mitigation or remediation activity, specifically targeted to a type of indoor environment.

Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Speech)
Subjects: Natural sciences > Physical sciences
Divisions: Faculty of Medical Science
Depositing User: Zdenka Stojanovska
Date Deposited: 28 Nov 2016 10:10
Last Modified: 28 Nov 2016 10:10
URI: https://eprints.ugd.edu.mk/id/eprint/12219

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