NATURAL RADIOACTIVITY VARIATION WITH SOME SOIL PROPERTIES

In an extension of our previous studies of environmental radiologicalmonitoring, the radionuclides activity concentrations (226Ra, 232Th, and 40K) wereestimated using gamma-ray spectrometry for three soil types (silt clay loam, clay loam,and sandy clay loam) from three diverse regions adjacent to the Nile River in Egypt.These measures were found to be 14 ± 1.34 to 29 ± 2.81, 5.7 ± 0.54 to 23.3 ± 2.34, and113 ± 11 to 427 ± 41 Bq kg-1, respectively. We aimed to investigate the correlationbetween radionuclide concentrations in soils with different textural properties andchemical parameters, such as hydrogen ion concentration (pH) and organic matter(OM). The recorded values for soil pH ranged from 6.9 to 8.2, while the organic mattercontent ranged from 0.4 to 2.6%. A correlation was observed between 40K activityconcentration and OM.