Evaluation of health hazards from radionuclides in soil and rocks of North Waziristan, Pakistan

The aim & objective of this study is to evaluate the healthhazards of the general public from the existence of the radioactive nuclides insoil of north waziristan and to establish a reference line for future work onradioactivity concentration in this locality. methods and materials: a highlybackground radiation shielded hpge system is used to measure radioactivityin the collected samples of the geographical study area. results: theradioactivity concentration is found to be in the range 42.6–106.3 bq/kg forra-226, 4.0–93.8 bq/kg for th-232, 49.9–645.5 bq/kg for k-40, and 2.6–8.33bq/kg for cs-137. the external and internal hazards indices (hext & hint),absorbed γ- dose rate (adr) and average effective dose (aed) are estimatedfrom the computed activities and determined the average hext ~ 0.75 andhint ~ 0.94. the mean absorbed dose rate was found to be 101 ngy/h. theradium equivalent activity of datta khel (422.081 bq/kg), khaisur forest(407.938 bq/kg), jani khel (379.213) specific regions and the correspondingoutdoor annual effective dose rate was found to be 0.15 msv/yr, which ishigher than the world’s mean value of 0.07 msv/yr. conclusion: a strongpossitive correlation amongst the radioactive nuclides and, correspondingradiological variables at p ≤ 0.01confirmed that ra-226 and th-232 were thesignificant contributors to γ-radiation emission. radioactivity concentrationsand corresponding radiometric parameters were found to be higher in thespecific areas of north waziristan compared to the world’s mean valuesposes possible radiological risks for the residents of those areas