Evaluation of Cs-137 and natural radionuclides on different marine biota (crustacean and fishes) along Beheira governorate Coast-Egypt: RESRAD biota

Abstract

Purpose

This work will focused on the environmental and radio-ecological impacts occurred on an Egyptian coastal region, based on the radiochemical measurement of ²³⁸U, ¹³⁷Cs, ²³²Th, ⁴⁰K. The novelty of the study was cleared by the using of new technique showing the integration of two biological RESRAD models, lead to a probabilistic estimation of the radionuclides bioaccumulation in different consumed marine organisms and determination the probability of human cancer risk at different ages.

Material and methods

The 20 water samples were collected and mounted into clean containers, and their decay products, were measured in Bq.L⁻¹, using different quality assurance tools. The study will used different statistical analysis and different RESRAD modeling codes were used in the study to predict the degree of environmental and radio-ecological impacts at the studied area, this will be helpful in order to define the impacts resulted from the transferring and accumulation of different radionuclides.

Results

showed that the highest human dose conversion factor values of (5, 10, 15, with adult ages) were measured in Th-232 (mrem/pCi) while the lowest ingestion conversion factors values were observed in artificial ¹³⁷Cs. On the other hand the highest values of external risk factor in case of (5, 10, 15 with adult age) were observed in artificial Cs-137(mrem/pCi), while the lowest value of external risk factor with the same ages were observed in U-238. This will lead to continual monitoring of artificial Cs-137 in different marine coastal regions. The arrangement of the bioaccumulation value (BIV) in Bq.kg⁻¹ which being calculated by using RESRAD-Biota in case of crustacean animals will be as follow: U-238 > Th-232 > Cs-137, while the arrangement of BIV in case of fish animals will be: Cs-137 > U-232 > Th-232. On the other hand the arrangement of Internal Dose Conversion factors in case of crustacean animals will be: U-238 > Th-232 > Cs-137. While the arrangement of Internal Dose Conversion factors in case of fish animals will be: Cs-137> Th-232 > U-238.

Conclusion

RESRAD code’s results showed that the arrangement of the bioaccumulation and Dose Conversion factors were depend on the type of marine living organism. RESRAD code also showed that there are increments of the calculated external risk factor values which resulted from the adult than all the infants (5,10 and 15 ages) ages this may be related to the continuous replacement of new human’s body cells during the growth stages. The study results showed that, environmental bioaccumulation impacts of the artificial Cs-137 were very effective in both marine living organisms and human as this will support the relation between the ingestion Cs-137 in the body(inside the soft tissues), and the probability of the human cancer risk. On the other hand, study results showed the importance of using RESRAD BIOA code for the EIA's ecological and radiological studies which should be done for any future industrial coastal .projects.

Keywords:

• Bioaccumulation factor
• risk factor
• radionuclides
• crustacean
• fishes
• RESRAD-BIOTA

Ethics approval

All of the experimental protocols were not need to get ethic approval as there were no experimental animals used.

Consent to publish

All of authors consent that this manuscript was published in this journal.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Mohamed Hegazy Mohamed Salama

Mohamed Hegazy Mohamed Salama is working as an Associate Professor in Environmental Radiochemistry, Department of Siting, Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority, Egypt.

Mohamed Safwat Mohamed Tawfik

Mohamed Safwat Mohamed Tawfik is working as an Associate Professor in Radiochemistry, Department of Siting, Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority, Egypt.