A dosimetric comparison between ICRP and ORNL phantoms from exposure to ¹³⁷Cs contaminated soil

The ¹³⁷Cs soil contamination has detrimental effects on human health. The penetration and distribution of ¹³⁷Cs radionuclides at different soil depths were investigated. Two sampling campaigns in 2001 and 2018 were performed to determine the ¹³⁷Cs activity in soil at 11 locations around the city of Kragujevac in central Serbia. The ICRP and ORNL humanoid phantom models were used to determine equivalent and effective doses from the experimentally measured data, and conversion coefficients were obtained from Monte Carlo computations. The results show a general decrease in ¹³⁷Cs concentration in samples that were taken in 2018. However, variation of ¹³⁷Cs concentration was observed at different locations that did not match the expected reduction of ¹³⁷Cs concentration based on its half-life. Considering the computational results, no significant difference between the estimated equivalent dose rate per unit activity of ¹³⁷Cs (conversion coefficients) between ICRP and ORNL phantoms was observed. In addition, two open-source computer programs for PC and Android devices were developed for users to determine the equivalent and effective doses for their specific cases; this gives the users an easy-to-use interface and portable tools to determine dosimetric quantities. The obtained results and the developed tools would be useful for future investigations related to soil contamination by ¹³⁷Cs radionuclides that require extensive future studies.