Gonad, bone marrow and effective dose to the population of more than 90 towns and cities of Iran, arising from environmental gamma radiation

ABSTRACT

Since 1996 the assessment of environmental gamma radiation dose in residential areas of Iranian towns and cities has been accomplished for 10 counties. As a practical method and based on the results of a pilot study, in order to attribute the final results to the whole residential area of a town five stations were selected for every town. The location of individual station was studied closely to comply with recommended conditions in the literature. RDS-110 was employed to measure gamma dose rate for one hour. Average annual dose rates plus conversion coefficients were employed to estimate gonad, bone marrow, equivalent and effective dose. Minimum and maximum annual bone marrow and gonad dose equivalent attributed to environmental gamma are 0.24 mSvy[-1] [for both tissues] and 1.44 and 1.46 mSvy[-1], respectively. Average gonad and bone marrow doses for North Khorasan, Boshehr and Hormozgan provinces were less than the corresponding values for normal area