Radiological Assessment of Indoor Radon and Thoron Concentrations and Indoor Radon Map of Dwellings in Mashhad, Iran

A comprehensive study was carried out to measure indoor radon/thoron concentrations in 78 dwellings and soil-gas radon in the city of Mashhad, Iran during two seasons, using two common radon monitoring devices (NRPB and RADUET). In the winter, indoor radon concentrations measured between 75 +/- 11 to 376 +/- 24 Bq.m(-3) (mean: 150 +/- 19 Bq m(-3)), whereas indoor thoron concentrations ranged from below the Lower Limit of Detection (LLD) to 166 +/- 10 Bq.m(-3) (mean: 66 +/- 8 Bq m(-3)), while radon and thoron concentrations in summer fell between 50 +/- 11 and 305 +/- 24 Bq.m(-3) (mean 115 +/- 18 Bq m(-3)) and from below the LLD to 122 +/- 10 Bq m(-3) (mean 48 +/- 6 Bq.m(-3)), respectively. The annual average effective dose was estimated to be 3.7 +/- 0.5 mSv yr(-1). The soil-gas radon concentrations fell within the range from 1.07 +/- 0.28 to 8.02 +/- 0.65 kBq.m(-3) (mean 3.07 +/- 1.09 kBq.m(-3)). Finally, indoor radon maps were generated by ArcGIS software over a grid of 1 x 1 km(2) using three different interpolation techniques. In grid cells where no data was observed, the arithmetic mean was used to predict a mean indoor radon concentration. Accordingly, inverse distance weighting (IDW) was proven to be more suitable for predicting mean indoor radon concentrations due to the lower mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE). Meanwhile, the radiation health risk due to the residential exposure to radon and indoor gamma radiation exposure was also assessed.