Investigation of natural effective gamma dose rates case study: Ardebil Province in Iran

Gamma rays pose enough energy to induce chemical changes that may be biologically important for the normalfunctioning of body cells. the external exposure of human beings to natural environmental gamma radiationnormally exceeds that from all man-made sources combined. in this research natural background gamma doserates and corresponding annual effective doses were determined for selected cities of ardebil province. outdoorgamma dose rates were measured using an ion chamber survey meter in 105 locations in selected districts.average absorbed doses for ardebil, sar-ein, germy, neer, shourabil recreational lake, and kosar were determinedas 265, 219, 344, 233, 352, and 358 nsv/h, respectively. although dose rates recorded for germi and kosar arecomparable with some areas with high natural radiation background, however, the dose rates in other districts arewell below the levels reported for such locations. average annual effective dose due to indoor and outdoorgamma radiation for ardebil province was estimated as 1.73 (1.35–2.39) msv, which is on average 2 times higherthan the world population weighted average