Radionuclide content in soil from agricultural lands in the Russian Federation

The present investigation reports the content of radionuclides (226Ra, 232Th, 40K, 137Cs, and 235U) in soil samples from active farming lands in Russia. The samples included both control and fertilizer-infused soils. The fertilizers used in the investigation were a combination of two or three of the followings: KCl, K2SO4, KNO3, superphosphate, and ammonium nitrate. HPGe gamma spectrometry was used to measure the content of radionuclides in the soils. Overall, the average content (in Bq/kg) of 40K, 226Ra, 232Th, 137Cs, and 235U in the soil samples was 379, 20.13, 24.65, 2.92, and 1.27, respectively. The highest content of radionuclides was observed in the soil treated with fertilizer of the following composition: K2SO4 + superphosphate + ammonium-nitrate and the lowest was in case of KNO3 + superphosphate + ammonium-nitrate. The content of radionuclides determined in the present study was comparatively lower than in the similar studies from other parts of the world. In addition, the risk assessment indices rules out the possibility of any hazardous situation as these values were lower than the reference limits. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025.