IIARD International Institute of Academic Research and Development

RESEARCH JOURNAL OF PURE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (RJPST )

E-ISSN 2579-0536
P-ISSN 2695-2696
VOL. 7 NO. 3 2024
DOI: 10.56201/rjpst.v7.no3.2024.pg132.146

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Estimation of Radiological Health Risk in Fluted Pumpkin Leaf Samples Cultivated with and Without Inorganic Fertilizer

I. M. Essen, J. I. Ukpong, I. A. Sampson

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Abstract

Activity concentration of radionuclides present in soil and plants is a very useful parameter in accessing the level of radioactive contamination in farmlands and in plants cultivated in such farmlands. This work is aimed at assessing the Annual Effective Dose (AED) and Excess Lifetime Cancer Risk (ELCR) associated with fluted pumpkin leaf samples cultivated with and without inorganic fertilizers. In this work, the activity concentration of naturally occurring radionuclides in the fluted pumpkin and the farm soil were measured using high purity Germanium (HPGe) detector. For fluted pumpkin cultivated with inorganic fertilizer, the Annual Effective Dose AED ranges from 0.398 ?Sv.yr-1 to 0.707 ?Sv.yr-1 with a mean value of 0.517. The values of AED for all the locations were below the recommended limit of 1 ?Sv.yr-1 as recommended by ICRP. The Excess Life Time Cancer Risk (ELCR) obtained for all the samples in the different locations, ranges from 0.001053 to 0.001944 with a mean of 0.001421. The values obtained for the ELCR in all the locations were lower than the recommended limit of 0.01. For fluted pumpkin cultivated without inorganic fertilizers, the AED ranges from 0.400 ?Sv.yr-1 to 1.088 ?Sv.yr-1 with a mean of 0.677. The value of AED obtained in F12 (1.088 ?Sv.yr-1) is higher than the recommended limit of 1 ?Sv.yr-1. The values of AED obtained in the fluted pumpkin cultivated without inorganic fertilizers, are higher than the values obtained for fluted pumpkin cultivated with inorganic fertilizers. The ELCR values obtained in all locations for fluted pumpkin cultivated without inorganic fertilizers, ranges from 0.0011 ?Sv.yr-1 to 0.001866 ?Sv.yr-1. The values of ELCR are below the recommended limit. However it was observed that the fluted pumpkin cultivated without inorganic fertilizers has higher values of ELCR compared to those cultivated with inorganic fertilizers.

keywords:

Radionuclides, Fluted pumpkin, Activity Concentration, Fertilizer, Cancer risk.

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