Measurement of activity concentration levels of radionuclides in soil samples collected from Bethlehem Province, West Bank, Palestine

In this study, we report on the activity concentrations of ²³⁸U, ²³²Th, ⁴⁰K, and ¹³⁷Cs in 50 soil samples of Bethlehem Province, West Bank, Palestine. Gamma-ray spectroscopy was employed to perform the measurements using an HPGe detector. On one hand, the activity concentrations of natural radionuclides were found to vary from 12.7 to 122.3 Bq kg⁻¹ with an average value of 41.4 Bq kg⁻¹ for ²³⁸U, from 2.0 to 32.2 Bq kg⁻¹ with an average value of 19.5 Bq kg⁻¹ for ²³²Th, and from 12.0 to 183.8 Bq kg⁻¹ with an average value of 113.3 Bq kg⁻¹ for ⁴⁰K. On the other hand, the activity concentrations of the artificial ¹³⁷Cs radionuclide were found between 1.0 and 12.2 Bq kg⁻¹, with an average value of 2.8 Bq kg⁻¹. The variations of the assessed radiological hazard parameters indices Raeq, Dᵣ, Hₑₓ, and I\γ of natural radionuclides were found to be as follows: 16-148, 7-65, 0.04-0.4, and 0.11-1.00, respectively. The results were found to be comparable to or lower than similar reported data worldwide. Accordingly, the investigated soil zones can be considered to have normal levels of natural background radiation.