Indoor radon being a product of the decay of 238U present in the soil or sub-soil, it is often assumed that a correlation must exist between indoor 222Rn the concentration of U in the soil or sub-soil, as well as with 222Rn in the soil. These correlations should also be influenced by other physical and geochemical properties, like soil permeability, which in turn can be related to pedological, geological and lithological classes. Analyzing the relations between all these factors could allow developing a model that would predict areas affected by 222Rn, even without any measurement in homes. This model would use the available data, which may differ according to the country or even the region. Several data are available in Ardenne, a region of ~4000 km2 in the south of Belgium: indoor Rn and soil gas Rn concentrations, soil permeability, soil U from an airborne campaign, which all show an important variability, although the area as a whole can be considered as radon-affected. Geological, pedological and lithological information is also available. As the datasets were not collected at the same sampling points, a first step of interpolation / smoothing was necessary for some of them before the multivariate analysis. The data were mapped on a kilometric grid. Soil Rn and soil permeability were combined into a "radon potential" applying the Czech definition. The numerical variables were transformed I a way to obtain roughly normal distributions (e.g. log-transform of indoor Rn data). Figure 1 summarizes the absence of clear relationships between indoor Rn, soil permeability, and airborne soil U. As the radon potential is a function of soil gas Rn, the better correlation between these two variables is obvious.
Indoor Radon in Ardenne: A multivariate analysis.
G Ciotoli;
2017
Abstract
Indoor radon being a product of the decay of 238U present in the soil or sub-soil, it is often assumed that a correlation must exist between indoor 222Rn the concentration of U in the soil or sub-soil, as well as with 222Rn in the soil. These correlations should also be influenced by other physical and geochemical properties, like soil permeability, which in turn can be related to pedological, geological and lithological classes. Analyzing the relations between all these factors could allow developing a model that would predict areas affected by 222Rn, even without any measurement in homes. This model would use the available data, which may differ according to the country or even the region. Several data are available in Ardenne, a region of ~4000 km2 in the south of Belgium: indoor Rn and soil gas Rn concentrations, soil permeability, soil U from an airborne campaign, which all show an important variability, although the area as a whole can be considered as radon-affected. Geological, pedological and lithological information is also available. As the datasets were not collected at the same sampling points, a first step of interpolation / smoothing was necessary for some of them before the multivariate analysis. The data were mapped on a kilometric grid. Soil Rn and soil permeability were combined into a "radon potential" applying the Czech definition. The numerical variables were transformed I a way to obtain roughly normal distributions (e.g. log-transform of indoor Rn data). Figure 1 summarizes the absence of clear relationships between indoor Rn, soil permeability, and airborne soil U. As the radon potential is a function of soil gas Rn, the better correlation between these two variables is obvious.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
