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Article: Assessment of soil radon potential in Hong Kong, China, using a 10-point evaluation system

TitleAssessment of soil radon potential in Hong Kong, China, using a 10-point evaluation system
Authors
KeywordsFaults
Hong kong
Radon concentration
Radon potential
Ten-point system
Issue Date2013
PublisherSpringer. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.springer.com/earth+sciences/geology/journal/12665
Citation
Environmental Earth Sciences, 2013, v. 68 n. 3, p. 679-689 How to Cite?
AbstractRadon and its progenies have been ranked second of being responsible for lung cancer in humans. Hong Kong has four major groups of uranium-rich plutonic and volcanic rocks and is suffering from radon emanated therefrom. However, there is a lack of radon potential maps in Hong Kong to resolve the spatial distribution of radon-prone areas. A ten-point radon potential system was developed in Germany (2005) to predict radon potential using both the in situ geogenic and geographic parameters under hierarchical ranking. Primarily, the ten-point system requires the desk study of the geological environment of sampling sites, which has an advantage of saving resources and manpower in extensive radon potential mapping over the traditional soil radon concentration sampling method. This paper presents a trial of radon potential mapping in Hong Kong to further verify the system. Despite some slight departures, the system demonstrates an acceptable correlation with soil radon concentrations (R 2 = 0.62-0.66) from 768 samples of mainly intermediate radon potential. Hong Kong has a mean soil radon concentrations of 58.9 kBqm -3, while the radon potential from the ten-point system achieves an average of 4.93 out of 10 over the territory. The vicinity of fault zone showed high soil radon concentrations and potentials, which were conducive to uranium enrichment and rapid soil-gas diffusion near faults. High uranium-238 content in soil was found to cause high soil radon concentration with a large R 2, 0.84. The Jurassic granite and volcanic crystal tuff cover more than 85 % of the whole Hong Kong area, and they show relatively high radon concentrations (Geometric mean 83 and 49 kBqm -3, respectively) which are associated with their high uranium contents (Geometric mean 234 and 197 Bqkg -1, respectively). While indoor radon concentration is an important factor for radon risk assessment, this study has not considered the correlation between indoor radon concentration and radon potential. The reason is that almost all buildings in Hong Kong are high-rise buildings where indoor radon concentrations are governed only by the radium content in the building materials and the ventilation conditions. © 2012 The Author(s).
Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/159517
ISSN
2023 Impact Factor: 2.8
2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 0.633
ISI Accession Number ID

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorTung, Sen_HK
dc.contributor.authorLeung, JKCen_HK
dc.contributor.authorJiao, JJen_HK
dc.contributor.authorWiegand, Jen_HK
dc.contributor.authorWartenberg, Wen_HK
dc.date.accessioned2012-08-16T05:51:13Z-
dc.date.available2012-08-16T05:51:13Z-
dc.date.issued2013en_HK
dc.identifier.citationEnvironmental Earth Sciences, 2013, v. 68 n. 3, p. 679-689en_HK
dc.identifier.issn1866-6280en_HK
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/159517-
dc.description.abstractRadon and its progenies have been ranked second of being responsible for lung cancer in humans. Hong Kong has four major groups of uranium-rich plutonic and volcanic rocks and is suffering from radon emanated therefrom. However, there is a lack of radon potential maps in Hong Kong to resolve the spatial distribution of radon-prone areas. A ten-point radon potential system was developed in Germany (2005) to predict radon potential using both the in situ geogenic and geographic parameters under hierarchical ranking. Primarily, the ten-point system requires the desk study of the geological environment of sampling sites, which has an advantage of saving resources and manpower in extensive radon potential mapping over the traditional soil radon concentration sampling method. This paper presents a trial of radon potential mapping in Hong Kong to further verify the system. Despite some slight departures, the system demonstrates an acceptable correlation with soil radon concentrations (R 2 = 0.62-0.66) from 768 samples of mainly intermediate radon potential. Hong Kong has a mean soil radon concentrations of 58.9 kBqm -3, while the radon potential from the ten-point system achieves an average of 4.93 out of 10 over the territory. The vicinity of fault zone showed high soil radon concentrations and potentials, which were conducive to uranium enrichment and rapid soil-gas diffusion near faults. High uranium-238 content in soil was found to cause high soil radon concentration with a large R 2, 0.84. The Jurassic granite and volcanic crystal tuff cover more than 85 % of the whole Hong Kong area, and they show relatively high radon concentrations (Geometric mean 83 and 49 kBqm -3, respectively) which are associated with their high uranium contents (Geometric mean 234 and 197 Bqkg -1, respectively). While indoor radon concentration is an important factor for radon risk assessment, this study has not considered the correlation between indoor radon concentration and radon potential. The reason is that almost all buildings in Hong Kong are high-rise buildings where indoor radon concentrations are governed only by the radium content in the building materials and the ventilation conditions. © 2012 The Author(s).en_HK
dc.languageengen_US
dc.publisherSpringer. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.springer.com/earth+sciences/geology/journal/12665en_HK
dc.relation.ispartofEnvironmental Earth Sciencesen_HK
dc.rightsThe original publication is available at www.springerlink.comen_US
dc.rightsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.-
dc.subjectFaultsen_HK
dc.subjectHong kongen_HK
dc.subjectRadon concentrationen_HK
dc.subjectRadon potentialen_HK
dc.subjectTen-point systemen_HK
dc.titleAssessment of soil radon potential in Hong Kong, China, using a 10-point evaluation systemen_HK
dc.typeArticleen_HK
dc.identifier.emailTung, S: jaytung@hku.hken_HK
dc.identifier.emailLeung, JKC: jkcleung@hku.hken_HK
dc.identifier.emailJiao, JJ: jjiao@hku.hk-
dc.identifier.authorityLeung, JKC=rp00732en_HK
dc.identifier.authorityJiao, JJ=rp00712en_HK
dc.description.naturepublished_or_final_version-
dc.identifier.doi10.1007/s12665-012-1782-0en_HK
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-84872288343en_HK
dc.identifier.hkuros205448en_US
dc.identifier.isiWOS:000313449900008-
dc.publisher.placeGermanyen_HK
dc.identifier.scopusauthoridWartenberg, W=43961771700en_HK
dc.identifier.scopusauthoridWiegand, J=55259705000en_HK
dc.identifier.scopusauthoridJiao, JJ=7102382963en_HK
dc.identifier.scopusauthoridLeung, JKC=24080627200en_HK
dc.identifier.scopusauthoridTung, S=55260354500en_HK
dc.identifier.issnl1866-6280-

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