Investigation of the Natural Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) in the cyprinus carpio fishes breeding in artificial lakes of Baghdad governorate

Abstract

The steady consumption of fish led many researchers to study it preferences over other foods, especially for radioactivity content. The specific activity concentration (S.A) of natural occurring radioactive materials (NORM) have been measured for Cyprinus carpio fishes collected from several industrial fishes' lakes located in Baghdad governorate using gamma spectroscopy doped with high purity germanium coaxial detector (HPGe). Thirteen fishes' samples were collected from industrial lakes, three samples were collected from cages, and two samples were collected from Trigger River. The last two types of samples were collected in order to compare the results with it. The measured overall averages of S.A for Ra-226, Th-232, and K-40 were 58.9 Bq/kg, 14.1 Bq/kg, and 388.6 Bq/kg, respectively. Some radiation health hazard indices have been estimated, such as the annual effective ingestion dose for an adult member of the public due to the intake of radionuclide through ingestion of fish (H). The results of H showed that the cage fish is better than river fishes and lakes fishes. However, the results of S.A and H strongly suggested that the studied fish is safe to use for human consumption from radiological point of view.