Natural radioactivity content in Bulgarian drinking waters and consequent dose estimation

Natural radioactivity in drinking water from Bulgaria was determined in 994 samples. Nine hundred and seventeen of them are from the Southwestern part of the country. The measured activity of natural uranium, (226)Ra, gross alpha and gross beta activity varied from 20 (5) ng l(-1) to 0.11 (3) mg l(-1), MDA to 0.39 (6) Bq l(-1), MDA to 6.23 (39) Bq l(-1) and 0.030 (7) Bq l(-1) to 0.98 (22) Bq l(-1), respectively. Approximately 33% of the investigated waters exceeded a gross alpha activity of 0.1 Bq l(-1), 1.8% a natural uranium concentration of 0.03 mg l(-1) and 1% an (226)Ra concentration of 0.15 Bq l(-1). Annual effective dose from natural radionuclides ranges from 0.0175 (43) µSv to 95.5 (2.6) µSv. Median values of the contribution of the (226)Ra and uranium to the indicative dose are 10.22 and 0.21 µSv y(-1), respectively. Poor relationships between (226)Ra/nat.U (r, 0.12) and for gross beta activity/natural uranium (nat.U) (r, 0.29) were observed. The relationships between nat.U/gross alpha activity (r, 0.50) and for gross alpha activity/gross beta activity (r, 0.52) concentration distributions were stronger.