Assessment and Comparative Study of Radon Level in Water Samples Collected within Ogbomoso Metropolis, Oyo State, Nigeria

In the recent time, due to the unavailability of public pipe borne water which the government provides for use, the alternative uncased and cased water became the popular means of water supply, both in rural and urban areas, not minding the likely health effect that may arise due to high level of concentration of radon and its progeny in drinking water from the aforementioned sources. Hence, this study focuses on the radon concentration in underground water samples collected across Ogbomoso land. A total of 300 water samples were collected, comprising of 160 water samples from uncased and 140 samples from cased well. The samples were analysed using a well calibrated active electronic radon detector RAD7 (DURRIDGE Company Inc., USA). The results obtained revealed that the radon concentration of the uncased well is in the range of 3.30 kBqm-3 to 33.95 kBqm-3, while the radon concentration for the cased well fell in the range 30.39 kBqm-3 to 65.98 kBqm-3. The results obtained from the two categories of water samples analyzed showed that the cased well sources had the highest concentration of radon compared with the limit set by local and international bodies. Hence, appropriate measures should be taken to mitigate the level of concentration of radon in the water within the study area before consumption. Concerted effort should also be made by the health workers to enlighten the residence on the potential harmful effect of radon to human health

Comparative Study on the Contribution of Asbestos and Gypsum Building Materials to Environmental Radioactivity and Its Radiological Implications

Building materials have been studied and found to contain trace amount of natural radionuclides. In order to estimate the radiological impact to the dweller, the level of radionuclides present in asbestos and gypsum building materials available in Nigeria market were carried out using a well shielded and calibrated gamma spectrometry. The results obtained shown that the natural radionuclides of 238U, 232Th, and 40K are present in the building materials assayed, with activity concentration of 141.76 to 526.29 Bqkg-1, 2.14 to 7.94 Bqkg-1 and 9.89 to 14.23 Bqkg-1 for the gypsum samples and 221.64 to 513.38 Bqkg-1, 15.99 to 34.68 Bqkg-1 and 9.10 to 18.93 Bqkg-1 for the asbestos samples respectively. The average concentration obtained for samples are relatively lower than the worldwide average. The radiation hazard indices estimated are also lower than the international recommended values. Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that the use of these materials in construction of dwellings may be considered safe for inhabitants and that the dwellers inside the buildings are not supposed to acquire any radiological complication in terms of radiation hazard. &nbsp