Department of Water and Sanitation AND FORESTRY

 

Institute for Water Quality Studies

 

RADIOACTIVITY DOSE CALCULATION

AND WATER QUALITY EVALUATION GUIDELINE FOR DOMESTIC WATER USE

 

March 2002

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Contents List

Foreword. 4 Acknowledgements. 5 Glossary of Terms. 6 1.      Purpose. 11 2.      Introduction. 11 3.      Radioactivity and ionising radiation 13 3.1.       Radiation in everyday life. 13 3.2.       Types of radiation. 14 3.3.       Radiation dose. 14 3.4.       Radiation protection. 15 3.5.       At what level is radiation harmful?. 16 3.6.       Risks and benefits. 17 3.7.       Artificial radioactivity. 18 4.      Chronic and persistent exposure situations. 20 5.      Intervention. 20 6.      Behaviour of naturally occurring nuclides in the environment22 6.1.       Introduction. 22 6.2.       Uranium and thorium nuclides. 22 6.3.       Other NORM nuclides. 23 7.      Typical water quality criteria. 24 7.1.       Criteria. 24 7.2.       Guideline examples. 24 7.3.       UNSCEAR data on radioactivity in drinking water26 8.      Water treatment and its effect on NORM concentrations. 29 9.      Uncertainty. 29 10.        Describing water quality in terms of its radioactivity content31 11.        Water analysis and calculating the annual dose, D .. 31 11.1.        Introduction. 31 11.2.        Methods for determining annual dose estimates. 31 11.2.1.         Introduction. 31 11.2.2.         Calculation Method 1: A screening method. 34 11.2.3.         Method 2: A detailed method. 35 11.2.4.         Comments on monitoring frequency and water analysis methods. 36 11.2.5.         Framework for nuclide analysis and decision making. 36 12.         References . 36         Appendix A. 36