Towards a european atlas of natural radiation: Goal, status and future perspectives

One of the tasks of the European Commission (EC) under the Euratom Treaty is to collect, validate and provide information about the levels of radioactivity in the environment. In order to offer to the public a more balanced view on the annual dose that it may receive from environmental radioactivity, a few years ago we decided to explore the feasibility of preparing a European Atlas of Natural Radiation. By now 21 European countries have already provided indoor radon data, and efforts continue to extend this information to more countries. In addition, we started to investigate the feasibility of a “geogenic radon map”, which would show “what earth delivers” in terms of potential radon hazard. In this paper we present the current state of the art of preparing the Atlas and provide detailed statistics for the results already obtained. The current efforts are still focussed on radon, but also progress on other components, such as cosmic rays and terrestrial gamma radiation, will be presented and discussed.