RADON MONITORING IN SOILS AND WATER

The soil is known to be the most important radon source but there are only few commercially available detectors for soil gas radon. Even fewer instruments allow for the simultaneous measurement of the gas permeability of a soil, the most important factor determining underground radon transport. Dynamic processes like radon transport in the soil would best be studied by continuous monitoring but this is rarely done. The situation is hardly better for radon-in-water measurements. Batch sampling and subsequent measurement in the laboratory is common practice but direct measurement in the field or continuous monitoring is the exception. This paper shows that proper soil gas sampling including permeability measurement and continuous radon-in-water measurement is possible with even simple equipment. Some applications are shown to encourage further work in this field.