Radon Webinar: Prevention and mitigation methods related to indoor radon and natural radionuclides in building materials

Sign up for this webinar on IAEA's website

Presenters: Joshua Kerber, Friderik Knez, Tony Löfqvist 
Date of broadcast: 26 February 2019, 9:30 am EST (Eastern Time - Canada)

About the webinar

Many countries have developed regulations on indoor radon and have verified these regulations, but remedial and preventative measures are not sufficiently used. This is related to an absence of a trained workforce on remedial and preventative techniques.

The IAEA is developing a new Technical Document to support radiation protection against indoor radon and Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) in building materials by highlighting prevention and mitigation methods. The document will include both mitigation measures for existing buildings and prevention measures for new buildings.

The webinar will be divided into three sections and will last about 90 minutes. 

In the first section, Tony Löfqvist, a technical engineer from Sweden, will discuss NORM and gamma radiation in stone-based construction materials for buildings. This section will highlight how to test in all stages of the production cycle, which include in construction material before it has been removed from rock pits, in factories during manufacturing and in constructed buildings.

In the second section, Joshua Kerber, an environmental research scientist from the United States, will discuss how to prevent radon from entering buildings, regardless of building type. Design features and construction details will be presented along with field research results from housing stock in a cold climate.

The concluding presentation by Friderik Knez, an expert on radon mitigation from Slovenia, will focus on the remediation of large existing public buildings. Case studies will showcase examples of radon mitigation and illustrate its principles. Different possibilities and factors affecting the design and execution of radon mitigation will be also discussed. 

Learning objectives

During the webinar, participants will learn about:

• How to perform testing of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) in building materials; 
• How construction, including the fine details, can keep radon from entering a building; and,
• Factors to consider in the design and implementation of radon mitigation