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Elevated radium levels in Nubian Aquifer groundwater of Northeastern Africa
The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System in Northeast Africa and the Middle East is a huge water resource of inestimable value to the population. However, natural radioactivity impairs groundwater quality throughout the aquifer posing a radiological health risk to millions of people. Here we present meas...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7794551/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33420203 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80160-0 |
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author | Sherif, Mahmoud I. Sturchio, Neil C. |
author_facet | Sherif, Mahmoud I. Sturchio, Neil C. |
author_sort | Sherif, Mahmoud I. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System in Northeast Africa and the Middle East is a huge water resource of inestimable value to the population. However, natural radioactivity impairs groundwater quality throughout the aquifer posing a radiological health risk to millions of people. Here we present measurements of radium isotopes in Nubian Aquifer groundwater from population centers in the Western Desert of Egypt. Groundwater has (226)Ra and (228)Ra activities ranging from 0.01 to 2.11 and 0.03 to 2.31 Bq/L, respectively. Most activities (combined (226)Ra + (228)Ra) exceed U.S. EPA drinking water standards. The estimated annual radiation doses associated with ingestion of water having the highest measured Ra activities are up to 138 and 14 times the WHO-recommended maxima for infants and adults, respectively. Dissolved Ra activities are positively correlated with barium and negatively correlated with sulfate, while barite is approximately saturated. In contrast, Ra is uncorrelated with salinity. These observations indicate the dominant geochemical mechanisms controlling dissolved Ra activity may be barite precipitation and sulfate reduction, along with input from alpha-recoil and dissolution of aquifer minerals and loss by radioactive decay. Radium mitigation measures should be adopted for water quality management where Nubian Aquifer groundwater is produced for agricultural and domestic consumption. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7794551 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-77945512021-01-12 Elevated radium levels in Nubian Aquifer groundwater of Northeastern Africa Sherif, Mahmoud I. Sturchio, Neil C. Sci Rep Article The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System in Northeast Africa and the Middle East is a huge water resource of inestimable value to the population. However, natural radioactivity impairs groundwater quality throughout the aquifer posing a radiological health risk to millions of people. Here we present measurements of radium isotopes in Nubian Aquifer groundwater from population centers in the Western Desert of Egypt. Groundwater has (226)Ra and (228)Ra activities ranging from 0.01 to 2.11 and 0.03 to 2.31 Bq/L, respectively. Most activities (combined (226)Ra + (228)Ra) exceed U.S. EPA drinking water standards. The estimated annual radiation doses associated with ingestion of water having the highest measured Ra activities are up to 138 and 14 times the WHO-recommended maxima for infants and adults, respectively. Dissolved Ra activities are positively correlated with barium and negatively correlated with sulfate, while barite is approximately saturated. In contrast, Ra is uncorrelated with salinity. These observations indicate the dominant geochemical mechanisms controlling dissolved Ra activity may be barite precipitation and sulfate reduction, along with input from alpha-recoil and dissolution of aquifer minerals and loss by radioactive decay. Radium mitigation measures should be adopted for water quality management where Nubian Aquifer groundwater is produced for agricultural and domestic consumption. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-01-08 /pmc/articles/PMC7794551/ /pubmed/33420203 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80160-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Sherif, Mahmoud I. Sturchio, Neil C. Elevated radium levels in Nubian Aquifer groundwater of Northeastern Africa |
title | Elevated radium levels in Nubian Aquifer groundwater of Northeastern Africa |
title_full | Elevated radium levels in Nubian Aquifer groundwater of Northeastern Africa |
title_fullStr | Elevated radium levels in Nubian Aquifer groundwater of Northeastern Africa |
title_full_unstemmed | Elevated radium levels in Nubian Aquifer groundwater of Northeastern Africa |
title_short | Elevated radium levels in Nubian Aquifer groundwater of Northeastern Africa |
title_sort | elevated radium levels in nubian aquifer groundwater of northeastern africa |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7794551/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33420203 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80160-0 |
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