https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-025-01537-8
Regular Article
Radon measurements and occupational dose assessment in Greek tourist caves
1
Environmental Radioactivity Monitoring Unit, Greek Atomic Energy Commission, P.O. Box 60092, 15341, Agia Paraskevi, Greece
2
Laboratory of Analytical and Environmental Chemistry, Technical University of Crete, University Campus, 73100, Chania, Greece
3
Ephorate of Paleoanthropology and Speleology, Ministry of Culture, Athens, Greece
Received:
30
June
2024
Accepted:
17
February
2025
Published online:
4
March
2025
Radon measurements within cave environments have been carried out for scientific purposes for several decades. The implementation of the European directive of 2013/59/Euratom, along with the national radon action plan, mandates the assessment of occupational exposure to radon. Within this context, radon measurements were conducted in five tourist caves. Several detectors were spatially distributed within each cave in order to estimate the worker exposure. Additionally, measurements were conducted in the Petralona cave over three consecutive periods. Solid-state nuclear track detectors were utilized for all measurements. Dose assessments were conducted by applying the dose conversion factor of ICRP-137 for caves and taking into consideration the operational schedule in each cave. The resulted doses were in the range of 3.2–15.0 mSv/year. All caves except one are subject to regulatory control by means of notification.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
