Indoor radon (Rn) is acknowledged a serious hazard to health, being the second most important cause of lung cancer after smoking. Indoor Rn mapping aims to support identifying Rn priority areas, i.e. primary focus areas for Rn exposure mitigation. The European Basic Safety Standards Directive, which forms the framework of European Rn regulation, requires all EU Member States to delineate radon priority areas (RPA). However, due to different definition between countries, RPAs are generally not consistent across borders. In parallel, a European Atlas of Natural Radioactivity has been developed by the JRC of the EC, which foresees including a map of geogenic Rn availability, quantified by a variable still to be defined. The Geogenic Radon Hazard Index (GRHI) is conceived as quantity that measures the contribution of geogenic Rn to exposure and hence risk. The GRHI concept was first proposed in 2014, and several attempts have since been made to develop a viable model. All existing models rely on association between geogenic factors and building weighted combinations between available quantities. The GRHI can be defined as a numerical or ordinal-categorical quantity, i.e. ordered classes. The GRHI should be applicable universally, i.e. it should be possible to derive it from whatever geogenic data are regionally available. It should also be consistent in the sense that derivation from different datasets should yield the same result. This implies uniformity across borders of regions in which different predictors are available, given the same objective geogenic control. In European countries, different databases are available, which are physically and statistically related to the geogenic radon potential (GRP). These include geology, soil properties, hydrogeology, tectonics and seismicity, geochemistry, gamma dose rate, soil gas and standardized indoor Rn concentrations and GRP of different definitions. The GRHI would thus constitute a harmonized measure which integrates different types of data. As a top-down harmonization method, it utilises whatever data are available, contrary to a bottom-up approach which would require harmonized input data. The latter is evidently not realistic for the foreseeable future, since it would require Europe wide dense harmonized sampling. Tasks include the application of confirmatory (regression, ANOVA) or exploratory (PCA and similar) statistical techniques, also including spatial information.In this contribution, we present existing approaches and discuss their relative advantages andshortcomings. Recent advances are shown and examples given. Once a GRHI definition is developed, it could constitute a possible database for a Europe wide map of RPAs. The GRHI could thus be a harmonized measure of the degree of radon priority of an area or a given location.
DEVELOPMENT OF A GEOGENIC RADON HAZARD INDEX
Ciotoli G;
2019
Abstract
Indoor radon (Rn) is acknowledged a serious hazard to health, being the second most important cause of lung cancer after smoking. Indoor Rn mapping aims to support identifying Rn priority areas, i.e. primary focus areas for Rn exposure mitigation. The European Basic Safety Standards Directive, which forms the framework of European Rn regulation, requires all EU Member States to delineate radon priority areas (RPA). However, due to different definition between countries, RPAs are generally not consistent across borders. In parallel, a European Atlas of Natural Radioactivity has been developed by the JRC of the EC, which foresees including a map of geogenic Rn availability, quantified by a variable still to be defined. The Geogenic Radon Hazard Index (GRHI) is conceived as quantity that measures the contribution of geogenic Rn to exposure and hence risk. The GRHI concept was first proposed in 2014, and several attempts have since been made to develop a viable model. All existing models rely on association between geogenic factors and building weighted combinations between available quantities. The GRHI can be defined as a numerical or ordinal-categorical quantity, i.e. ordered classes. The GRHI should be applicable universally, i.e. it should be possible to derive it from whatever geogenic data are regionally available. It should also be consistent in the sense that derivation from different datasets should yield the same result. This implies uniformity across borders of regions in which different predictors are available, given the same objective geogenic control. In European countries, different databases are available, which are physically and statistically related to the geogenic radon potential (GRP). These include geology, soil properties, hydrogeology, tectonics and seismicity, geochemistry, gamma dose rate, soil gas and standardized indoor Rn concentrations and GRP of different definitions. The GRHI would thus constitute a harmonized measure which integrates different types of data. As a top-down harmonization method, it utilises whatever data are available, contrary to a bottom-up approach which would require harmonized input data. The latter is evidently not realistic for the foreseeable future, since it would require Europe wide dense harmonized sampling. Tasks include the application of confirmatory (regression, ANOVA) or exploratory (PCA and similar) statistical techniques, also including spatial information.In this contribution, we present existing approaches and discuss their relative advantages andshortcomings. Recent advances are shown and examples given. Once a GRHI definition is developed, it could constitute a possible database for a Europe wide map of RPAs. The GRHI could thus be a harmonized measure of the degree of radon priority of an area or a given location.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
