Determination of the health hazards due to background radiation sources in the city of Adapazari, Northwestern Turkey

Human body is exposed to ionising radiations both internally and externally by mainly high-energy cosmic ray particles incident on the earth's atmosphere and radioactive nuclides that originated in the earth's crust. The main objective of this study is to assess the health hazards due to environmental radiation sources in the city of Adapazari, one of the most important industrial cities of the country, Northwestern Turkey. For this purpose, natural radiation sources, external terrestrial radiations, cosmic radiations, and inhalation exposures have been investigated. The annual average external terrestrial radiation doses were determined as 0.08 and 0.35 mSv at outdoor and indoor atmospheres, respectively. The annual average cosmic radiation doses were found to be 0.08 and 0.05 mSv for directly ionising photon components and neutron components, respectively. The annual average inhalation exposure doses due to radon and thoron were obtained as 1.42 and 0.19 mSv, respectively, in the region. The annual average effective dose due to natural radiation sources was determined as a total of 2.35 mSv with the predetermined ingestion radiation dose. The lifetime cancer risk due to the background ionising radiations has been determined as 0.9×10(-2) for the residents of the Adapazari city, with the average lifespan of 70 years. The results of the effective doses due to background radiation sources in the region and the worldwide averages were discussed.