Monitoring and analysis of radioactivity in soils in Beijing during 2017-2018 / 中华放射医学与防护杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate radionuclide content in soil at 19 spots in Beijing, in order to provide scientific basis for the accurate evaluation of the levels of radioactive contamination.Methods:GEM-MX7080P4 HPGe γ spectrometer was used to analyse the activity concentrations of radionuclide 226Ra, 232Th, 40K and 137Cs in all 38 soil samples from 16 districts of Beijing from 2017 to 2018. Results:The mean activity concentration of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K were 23.9 and 24.1 Bq/kg, 31.2 and 31.7 Bq/kg, 600 and 578 Bq/kg respectively for the two consecutive years. The mean activity concentration of 137Cs in the two years was 1.21 Bq/kg, with the highest values of 5.48 and 6.18 Bq/kg, about 4.5 times and 5.1 times the average values in those years. Conclusions:All the result are within the range of the values from previous Beijing municipal and countrywide survey of environmental background, with 137Cs in soil arising almost from the previous nuclear activities or nuclear incidents.