Analysis of variations in observed ambient dose rates due to rainfall or snowfall at JAEA Ningyo-toge

Tanaka, Hiroshi ; Sakoda, Akihiro   ; Ando, Masaki; Ishimori, Yuu  

Ambient dose rates are continuously monitored in Ningyo-toge Environmental Engineering Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency. The present study discussed the variations in ambient dose rates, observed from April 2014 to March 2015, due to snowfall as well as rainfall. It is much snowy as one of climatic features in this area. Rain or snow was sampled for a certain period in the day of interest (17 cases in total), and then the concentration of radon progeny was measured. With the measured data, the variation in ambient dose rate was calculated considering the accumulation of the radon progeny on the ground. As a whole, this calculation was found to reasonably reproduce the time trends of observed dose rates, except for four cases. Based on the backward trajectory analysis, it was explained that the discrepancy in two cases out of the four was induced by changes of radon progeny concentration in precipitation around sampling period. It was suggested that the other two cases were caused by the run-off of rain from the ground surface.