Long-term monitoring of soil gas radon and permeability at two reference sites

Abstract

The long-term monitoring of soil radon variations was conducted at two reference sites in Ottawa. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a single soil radon survey could provide a representative soil radon characteristic of the site. Results showed that during the normal field survey period from June to September in Canada, a single field survey with multiple measurements of soil gas radon concentrations at a depth of 80 cm can characterise the soil radon level of a site within a deviation of +/-30%. Direct in situ soil permeability measurements exhibited, however, large variations even within an area of only 10 x 10 m(2). Considering such large variations and the weight of the equipment, soil permeability can be determined by direct measurements whenever possible or by other qualitative evaluation methods for sites that are hard to access with heavy equipment.