Multivariate Statistics, Radioactivity and Radiological Hazard Evaluation in Marine Sediments of Selected Areas from Sicily, Southern Italy
Francesco Caridi | Antonio Francesco Mottese | Giuseppe Paladini | Lorenzo Pistorino | Francesco Gregorio | Stefania Lanza | Giovanni Randazzo | Santina Marguccio | Alberto Belvedere | Maurizio D’Agostino | Domenico Majolino | Valentina Venuti
This work reports the findings of an investigation aimed at assessing, for the first time, the natural and anthropogenic radioactivity content of marine sediments collected from selected areas of Sicily, Southern Italy. In particular, it focused on evaluating the average activity concentration of detected radionuclides and the radiological hazard for humans, above all considering the use of this material for nourishing actual eroded beaches. To this aim, the quantification of the average specific activity of <sup>226</sup>Ra, <sup>232</sup>Th, and <sup>40</sup>K natural and <sup>137</sup>Cs anthropogenic radioisotopes was addressed through the employment of High-Purity Germanium (HPGe) gamma-ray spectrometry. Furthermore, the absorbed gamma dose rate (D), the annual effective dose equivalent outdoor (AEDE<sub>out</sub>), the external hazard index (H<sub>ex</sub>), and the excess lifetime cancer risk (ELCR) were also calculated to evaluate the radiological hazard for humans related to external exposure to ionizing radiations. Furthermore, the average specific activity of <sup>137</sup>Cs was found to be less than the lowest detectable activity in all cases, excluding anthropogenic radioactive contamination of the investigated samples. Finally, Pearson correlation, principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), i.e., multivariate statistics, were carried out by analyzing detected radioactivity and radiological characteristics to evaluate their relationship with the sampling locations.
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