A study of the radioactivity in the dust storm event of april 2015 in Arabian Peninsula

Gulf countries are often affected by dust storms which have a significant influence on the environment and public health. The present work examines the radioactivity content in the intense dust storm occurred over Gulf countries on 1 April 2015. The results showed that the average value of ¹³⁷Cs in dust samples (±SD) is 14.4 ± 1.6 Bq/kg, which is almost two orders of magnitude larger than those in soil samples. ⁷Be was detected with a considerable amount only in dust samples. The activity concentrations of the natural radionuclides (^234,238U, ^228,230,232Th, ^226,228Ra and ⁴⁰K) in dust samples were found to be approximately two to three times higher than the corresponding values in soil samples, which is attributed to the abundance of the finest particle size in the dust samples. Also, the activity ratios and the correlations between the detected radionuclides were investigated to assess the origin and activities associated with any variation of the radionuclides in the environment. Moreover, the total annual effective dose due to ingestion of dust was estimated to be 89.7 and 34.9 nSv for infants and adults, respectively, which is well below the world average internal dose of 290 μSv. The main contributor to the annual effective dose was ²²⁸Ra, which contributes ∼69.6 and 43.3% for infants and adults, respectively, followed by: ²²⁶Ra ' ^232,230,228Th > ^234,238U > ⁴⁰k, ¹³⁷Cs' ⁷Be. (authors)