Assessment and Measurement of Radioactivity in Drinking Waters in Hormozgan Province

Investigation and monitoring of drinking water pollution is an important parameter for public health and environmental health studies and it is necessary to study it from different aspects. One of the most important aspects is to study the presence of various radionuclides in the water that emit alpha, beta, and gamma rays when their nuclei decay. The aim of this study was to investigate the radiological quality of water by measuring the concentration of gross alpha and beta activity in water resources of Hormozgan province. For this purpose, screening of 30 water samples from different water sources of Hormozgan province was performed by liquid scintillation method using a 1220 Quantulus liquid scintillation counter (LSC). The results of the analysis showed the activity concentration of gross alpha ranges from 48 mBq/l to 296 mBq/l with a mean of 166.2 mBq/l. the activity concentration of gross beta in the samples ranged from 65 mBq/l to 729 mBq/l with a mean of 460.3 mBq/l. The results showed that the gross alpha and beta radioactivity concentration in all waters was lower than the standard limit of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Institute of Standards and Industrial Research of Iran, which is 500 mBq/l and 1000 mBq/l, respectively also waters are radiologically healthy.