RADON BASELINE MONITORING AROUND A POTENTIAL SHALE GAS DEVELOPMENT SITE IN YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND

The Vale of Pickering in Yorkshire, England has been identified as a potential area for shale gas extraction. Public Health England joined a collaboration led by the British Geological Survey for environmental baseline monitoring near the potential shale gas extraction site following a grant award from UK Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The analysis of results for the first 6 months of indoor monitoring indicated that the results followed a log-normal distribution. The numbers of homes found to be at or above the Action Level followed the numbers predicted by the radon potential maps. The results from the measurements of outdoor air in this study indicated that the radon concentrations are slightly higher than previously measured but close to the detection limit of the technique.