Monitoring of indoor Radon in historical heritage buildings by means of passive and active methods. A case study

Indoor radon in buildings is a major cause of lung cancer in Europe, a risk enhanced by exposure to air pollution and tobacco smoke. Radon monitoring is, so, essential in determining the level of human exposure in living and work places. Recent literature has highlighted that historical buildings and archaeological sites could be affected by high Radon activity concentrations because of not only the entering from the soil but also due to the type of building materials and usage. This paper is aimed at monitoring Radon concentration measurement in an historical building in Salerno, Italia, where building material could highly contribute to indoor radon levels. The monitoring was performed over a period of 3 month. The measured concentrations ranged in a wide interval up to 263 Bq/m3 in living environments. Analysing the possible sources, both contributions of rad on from the building materials and radon from the soil was observed.