Natural radioactivity in Indian vegetation samples

Background: Vegeta on (food stuff) is grown in soil that contains many radioac ve elements such as 238 U (uranium), 232 Th (thorium) and 40 K (potassium), which may get deposited either due to radioac ve fallout or/and by absorp on from the soil and can pose serious health hazards. Materials and Methods: Natural radioac vity, radiological hazards and annual effec ve dose assessment was carried out in vegeta on samples (vegetables, cereals and fruits) collected from fields and market. Gamma spectrometry using HPGe detector was used. Results: The measured specific ac vity concentra on of 238 U (uranium), 232 Th (thorium) and 40 K (potassium) varied from 10.25 ± 0.94 Bq/kg to 29.13 ± 0.69 Bq/kg, 22.20 ± 2.46 Bq/kg to 58.21 ± 1.15 Bq/kg, and 1158.4 ± 26.05 Bq/kg to 1962.2 ± 18.17 Bq/kg respec vely in various vegetable and cereal samples and varied from 2.5 ± 0.16 Bq/kg to 9.8 ± 0.15 Bq/kg, 7.4 ± 1.24 Bq/kg to 18.4 ± 1.39 Bq/kg, and 287.13 ± 11.23 Bq/kg to 815.72 ± 12.50 Bq/kg respec vely in various fruit samples studied in the present work. From these values, hazard indices, the minimum and maximum values of absorbed dose and indoor and outdoor annual effec ve doses were calculated for various samples used in the present inves ga on. Conclusion: The various values obtained were found to be within the recommended limits. The absorbed dose and annual effec ve dose for the vegetable and cereal samples in which fer lizers were used to enhance the crop yield were higher than that in fruit samples.