Fertilizer Radionuclide pollution & Potential Health Hazards

Natural environmental radioactivity arises mainly from natural radionuclides, such as 40K and the nuclides from the 238U and 235U series and their decay products which occur at trace levels in all ground formations due to their origins. The fission product 137Cs is strongly adsorbed and retained by the soil particles, like the natural radionuclides which are found randomly distributed at different depths of soil. The subject of radioactive contamination has gained considerable public importance because of the Chernobyl accident. Over the last few the uses of phosphate fertilizers have been increased to raise the agriculture production, which has raised the radioactivity in the soils. In this study some cultivated patches have monitored for physico-chemical properties, radioactivity and its uptake in wheat grown were studied. Radiological impact was determined, by using some computation methods for uniform and soil deposited source conversion factors.By using the Effective dose, Radium equivalent dose,risk assessment was computed.

Autorentext
Nasim Akhtar, PhD: studied Health Physics at Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan.Deputy Chief Scientist at Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (NIAB) Pakistan.