Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), Department for Radon and Radioecology, Wieningerstrasse 8, 4020, Linz, Austria.
Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), Department for Radon and Radioecology, Wieningerstrasse 8, 4020, Linz, Austria.
J Environ Radioact. 2021 Jul;233:106618. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2021.106618. Epub 2021 Apr 21.
The delineation of radon prone areas is one of the central requirements of the European Council Directive 2013/59/EURATOM. It is quite a complex task which usually requires the collection of radon data through an appropriate survey as a first step. This paper presents the design and methodology of the recent Austrian radon survey (ÖNRAP 2, 2013-2019) and its implementation. It details the results of the nationwide survey as well as correlations and dependencies with geology and building characteristics. The paper also discusses the representativeness of the survey as well as advantages and disadvantages of the selected approach. For the purpose of establishing a new delineation of radon prone areas in Austria we distributed approximately 75,000 passive long-term radon detectors. They were offered to selected members of the voluntary fire brigades and this resulted in about 50,000 radon measurements. Thus, a return rate of about 67% was achieved. The distribution of the radon results closely follows a log-normal distribution with a median of 99 Bq/m³, a geometric mean of 109 Bq/m³, and a geometric standard deviation factor of 2.29. 11% of the households show a mean radon concentration above the national reference level of 300 Bq/m³. Important data on building characteristics and the location of the measured rooms were collected by means of a specific questionnaire and a measurement protocol that were handed out together with the radon detectors. We were able to identify significant correlations between the indoor radon concentration and geology, the year of construction, and the coupling of the room to the ground (basement yes/no, floor level). Being a geographically-based and not a population-weighted survey, the comparison of building characteristics with the Austrian census data confirms that rural areas are over-represented in this survey. As a summary, the selected approach of conducting passive long-term radon measurements in selected dwellings of members of the voluntary fire brigades proved to be an efficient method to collect reliable data as a basis for the delineation of radon prone areas. The next step was to eliminate factors that influence the measured radon concentration through appropriate modelling. Based on the results predicted by the model radon areas are then be classified. This will be presented in a subsequent publication.
氡气高发地区的划定是欧洲理事会指令 2013/59/EURATOM 的核心要求之一。这是一项相当复杂的任务，通常需要通过适当的调查来收集氡气数据作为第一步。本文介绍了最近的奥地利氡气调查（ÖNRAP2，2013-2019 年）的设计和方法及其实施情况。它详细说明了全国性调查的结果，以及与地质和建筑特征的相关性和依赖性。本文还讨论了调查的代表性，以及所选方法的优缺点。为了在奥地利划定新的氡气高发地区，我们分发了大约 75000 个被动式长期氡气探测器。它们提供给选定的志愿消防队成员，这导致了大约 50000 次氡气测量。因此，回收率约为 67%。氡气结果的分布非常接近对数正态分布，中位数为 99 Bq/m³，几何平均值为 109 Bq/m³，几何标准差因子为 2.29。11%的家庭显示出平均氡浓度超过 300 Bq/m³的国家参考水平。通过特定的问卷和测量协议收集了有关建筑特征和测量房间位置的重要数据，并与氡气探测器一起分发。我们能够确定室内氡浓度与地质、建筑年代以及房间与地面的耦合（地下室是/否、楼层）之间存在显著相关性。由于这是一项基于地理位置而不是人口加权的调查，因此将建筑特征与奥地利人口普查数据进行比较证实，农村地区在这项调查中所占比例过高。总之，选择在志愿消防队成员的选定住宅中进行被动式长期氡气测量的方法被证明是收集可靠数据作为划定氡气高发地区的基础的有效方法。下一步是通过适当的建模消除影响测量氡浓度的因素。然后，根据模型预测的结果对氡气区域进行分类。这将在随后的出版物中介绍。
