A preliminary study of natural radioactivity levels in soils from Kosovo: A case of study in Pristina Region

This preliminary survey has been undertaken as part of a systematic study to provide the soil radiological map of the Republic of Kosovo. A systematic unaligned grid sampling strategy was adopted using the European Environmental Agency reference grid of 10 km x 10 km. Soil samples were collected from fifteen locations in the region of Pristina. The activity concentrations of the radionuclides of 40K, 137Cs and progenies in the 238U, 232Th decay chains were measured by using high-resolution gamma ray spectrometry. The average activity concentrations were 398 ± 85, 24 ± 6 and 35 ± 7 Bq/kg for the 40K, 238U and 232Th respectively. The corresponding abundances were calculated to be, respectively 1.3 ± 0.3 % wt. K, 2.0 ± 0.5 µg/g eU and 2.0 ± 0.5 µg/g eTh with a characteristic eTh/eU ratio of average value of 4.4 indicating a common geological source origin and similar mobility. The activity concentration of 137Cs was found to vary from 0.2 to 48 Bq/kg, which was found to be comparable with similar studies in ...