Assessment of natural radionuclide distribution and radiological hazards in Egyptian soil using gamma-ray spectroscopy and evaluating with Monte Carlo simulation and Artificial Neural Network

<title>Abstract</title> <p> The activity concentration of naturally occurring radioactive nuclides ²²⁶ Ra, ²³⁸ U, ²³² Th, and ⁴⁰ K from soil samples collected from two cities: 10th of Ramadan and Zagazig, located in the Sharqia governorate in the eastern of Nile Delta, Egypt were measured using a high resolution HPGe gamma-ray spectrometer. The present study also uses Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) and an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model to perform theoretical calculations of the associated radiological hazard parameters for soil samples collected from these two cities and compared them with the measured experimental data. The use of artificial neural networks allows for taking advantage of large amounts of data at a very low computational cost, and the use of Monte Carlo simulation can produce predictions of the levels of radioactive materials and their future health risks at the regional level. The theoretical calculations based on the Monte Carlo simulation and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model for these radiological parameters of soil samples are in excellent agreement with the experimental results. The findings demonstrate that the activity concentration of radioactive nuclides and radium equivalent content, gamma absorbed dose, annual effective gamma dose rate and external hazard index in soil samples collected from Zagazig are about two times higher than those the values of samples collected from 10th of Ramadan. Overall, the soil samples from both cities are almost below the recommended level issued by the international committees on the effects of atomic radiation. </p>