Radon Monitoring in Underground Water of Punjab State and Thermal Springs of Himachal Pradesh

H S. Virk; B. Sansoni

Abstract

The source of Radon gas is generally within the rock strata in the form of an intermediate decay product of the U/Th radioactive series. It migrates from the earth’s crust to atmosphere by diffusion in the aqueous media. Radon monitoring is carried out to study health hazard effects. Scintillometry technique was used for measurement of Radon concentration in groundwater of Gurdaspur district and Parbati valley of HP. Radon concentration values show wide spread variation in drinking water of area under study. The hand pumps drawn water has higher value of radon concentration compared with the other sources including motor-driven pumps, tube-wells, municipal water supply and canal water. The average radon concentration values are 6.5, 5.8, 5.0, 4.7 and 1.1 Bq/l for hand-pumps, motor-driven pumps, tube-wells, water supplies and canal waters, respectively. Most of the thermal springs are distributed along the major thrust faults in N-W Himalayas. Our purpose was to monitor radon in thermal springs of Parbati valley, HP state. The radon concentration varies from 15.9 to 716.3 Bq/l. The high radon concentration is correlatable with radium and uranium content of water and soil in the Parbati valley.

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