Risk assessment due to ingestion of uranium and radon in the drinking water samples of the Budhakedar region in Garhwal Himalaya, India

The effects of uranium and its decay product radon in water are the most important concern in human health. In this paper, efforts have been made to measure and correlate the uranium (Using an LED Fluorimeter) and radon concentrations (Using SMART RnDuo) in the water samples from the Budhakedar region of the Garhwal Himalaya to assess the risk. The concentrations of uranium and radon in the water samples were found to vary between Below Detection Level (BDL) to 1.70 Bq L −1 (with an arithmetic mean of 0.15 Bq L −1 ) and 0.43 to 1.29 Bq L −1 (with an arithmetic mean of 0.75 Bq L −1 ) respectively. The annual effective dose to the inhabitants of the study region was also calculated for the different age groups.