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RADON IN TOURIST CAVES IN BULGARIA, AS AIR POLLUTER AND EXPOSURE CONTROL
Abstract
The major part of the radiation dose, which humans receive from natural radioactivesources, originate due to radon and its decay products inhalation. Indoor radon poses asubstantial threat to human health when build-up occurs in confined spaces such ashomes, mines and caves. The health risk increases with the duration of radon exposureand it is also proportional to the radon concentration. Tourist caves are a case of specialenvironmental conditions that may be affected by high radon concentration. The aim ofthe work is to present the radon concentration in the most popular Bulgarian touristcaves and access the influence of some factors, which give raise of the radon-pollutedair in them. Despite the fact that all of the caves were formed in karst rocks, the radonconcentrations were rather different between each other (61 Bq/m3 ? 3599 Bq/m3). Theobtained arithmetic mean and standard deviation of the radon concentrations have beenfound to be 1004 Bq/m3 and 852 respectively. Reducing the time spent in the cave,where high levels of radon have been found, is recommended to reduce the exposure ofworkers and the public. An assessment has been made of the influence of the followingfactors: 1the orientation of the caves in the earth's surface ("horizontal" and "abyss");2number of cave entrances / exits; 3numbers of cave levels and 4geographical locationon the radon concentration was performed. Statistically significant differences of theradon concentration for the factors: caves orientation (MW, p = 0.004); the number ofcave entrances (KW, p ? 0.0001) and the number of levels (MW, p = 0.002) werefound.
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References15
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