Determination of Gross Alpha and Beta Activities in Drinking Water of Misan Province, Iraq.
Abstract
Drinking water may comprises varying levels of radioactivity. Therefore it is very important to determine the radiation levels in the waters for drinking issue in public health and radiation protection. The grosses of Alpha and Beta activities in thirty three (Tigris river, station and Tap) samples of water taken from eleven different places at Misan Province of Iraq were measured and derived an annual effective dose from drinking water ingestion was calculated. However, the gross Alpha and gross Beta activities were used to counted the samples by new model LB-4110low background as flow proportional counter. Therefore, the results showed that the gross Alpha activity ranged from the 0.083 to 0.17 (0.126±0.029) Bq/L, 0.054 to 0.21(0.149±0.047) Bq/L and 0.095 to 0.21 (0.150±0.041) Bq/L while gross Beta activity ranged from0.21 to 0.68 (0.469±0.165)Bq/L, 0.34 to 0.64 (0.55±0.095) Bq/L and0.31 to 0.62 (0.482±0.120) Bq/L for Tigris river, station and Tap waters respectively. The annual effective dose intake detected per year due to Alpha activity in the water samples ranged from the 0.021to 0.044 (0.033±0.007) mSv/y, 0.014to 0.054 (0.039±0.01) mSv/y and 0.024 to 0.054 (0.039±0.01)mSv/y for Tigris river, station and Tap waters respectively. The overall results indicated that the gross Alpha and gross Beta activities and annual effective dose in these measured water samples were decreased in comparison with WHO recommended values(0.5 Bq/L for gross Alpha,1.0 Bq/L for gross Beta and0.1 mSv/y for annual effective dose).