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Natural radionuclide concentrations in soil, water, sediment and biota in England and Wales

Publisher
Environmental Information Data Centre
Updated
30 July 2026
Topic
Not set
Licence
Not set

Summary

Data comprise estimates of activity concentrations of naturally occurring radionuclides (40K, 238U and 232Th series radionuclides) in environmental media (soil and stream sediments and waters) and non-human biota (focusing on the ICRP Reference Animals and Plants). For soil, stream sediments and stream waters data were derived from total K, U and Th concentrations mainly from the ongoing geochemical survey of the United Kingdom (G-BASE), conducted by the British Geological Survey. The geochemical survey data are currently incomplete for England and Wales, but almost complete coverage was obtained for K in stream sediments by using the Wolfson Atlas data for southern England. For U and Th in sediments and K, U and Th in soils, more complete coverage was achieved by geological extrapolation (using relationships between soils/sediments and bedrock/superficial geology). For media and sediments, datasets are provided for both: (i) geometric mean concentrations from measured samples on a 5 x 5 km square basis where data are available; and (ii) extrapolated surfaces covering all of England and Wales. Data for non-human biota are from targeted sampling and analyses and data review. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/bb2d7874-7bf4-44de-aa43-348bd684a2fe

Data links

Link Format Preview Updated
Supporting information ZIP 30/7/2026
Download the data 30/7/2026

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Additional information

Source Metadata
XML, HTML
Date added
25 July 2026
Harvest GUID
bb2d7874-7bf4-44de-aa43-348bd684a2fe
Extent (Latitude)
55.812° to 49.864°
Extent (Longitude)
-6.452° to 1.768°
Dataset reference date (publication)
2015-11-18
Dataset reference date (creation)
2010-04-20
Frequency of update
notPlanned
Access constraints
© UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Responsible party
(owner, author, pointOfContact, publisher, custodian); British Geological Society (author); School of Natural Sciences (author)
ISO 19139 resource type
dataset
Metadata language
eng