A review on comparison of natural radiation in Iran with other countries

Abstract

The environment around people is radioactive due to receiving ionisation radiation from the sky, the Earth’s crust, and atoms in water, food, building materials and metals. Around 82% of human absorbed radiation doses, which are out of control, are from natural radiations. It is considerable that the background dose rates from cosmic rays depend on the altitude and regions with high altitude have high radiation doses. Radionuclides like uranium and thorium that exist in the region’s soil, type of building materials and the existence of some springs and quarries increase the dose rate of natural radiation in some regions. Because of the effect of natural radiation on the human health, in recent years several international studies have been done and different values were measured. In this paper a review and a comparison of the dose rates arising from natural sources to the Iranian population with other countries are reported.