This study aimed to evaluate the radiological impacts in Khanaqin, located in the Diyala Governorate, Iraq. The specific activities of natural radionuclides of ²³⁸U, ²³²Th, and ⁴⁰K in soil samples were investigated by collecting thirty composite soil samples from different locations in the area. Measurements were performed using a NaI(Tl) gamma-ray spectrometry system to acquire the data and analyses were conducted using the UCS-20 program. From the results, the average specific activities of ²³⁸U, ²³²Th, and ⁴⁰K were 25.15 ± 3.65 Bq kg⁻¹, 12.27 ± 2.28 Bq kg⁻¹, and 300.09 ± 14.50 Bq kg⁻¹, respectively. These results were lower than the global average recommended by UNSCEAR. The radiological risk criteria were estimated based on the specific activities of radionuclides to assess any radiological risks that may be associated with the soil of the study area under investigation. The radiological risk criteria included radium equivalent activity (Ra_eq), absorbed dose rate (D_R), annual effective dose (AEDE), annual gonadal equivalent dose (AGDE), excess lifetime cancer risk (ELCR), external hazard index (H_ex), internal hazard index (H_in), representative gamma index (I _γ ) and effective dose rate to different body organs (D_organ). They were compared with the international safe limits. Overall, all the radiological risk criteria had values lower than the worldwide average recommended by UNSCEAR. This work employed statistical techniques to understand and explain the statistical characteristics of measured radionuclide-specific activities and the associated radiological risk criteria , including skewness, kurtosis, correlation coefficients, and K-means cluster analysis.

Ten samples were studied from sediments collected from the Tigris River in the city of Mosul, and gamma ray spectroscopy NaI(TI) was used in order to detect and calculate the content of natural radionuclides for all samples collected. The results of the samples analyzed for the specific activity of ²²⁶Ra ranged from 6.30±0.319 Bq/kg to 13.73±0.411 Bq/kg with mean of 9.86±0.385 Bq/kg, and for ²³²Th from 13.39±0.626 Bq/kg to 29.84±0.923 Bq/kg and with mean of 23.05±0.838 Bq/kg, while for ⁴⁰K, it ranged from 166.83±6.456 Bq/kg to 275.96±7.601 Bq/kg and at mean of 232.91±6.456 Bq/kg. the results of the study were within the range of the recommended global values. Therefore, it can be said that the study area is safe and does not pose a threat to the residents near it. Statistical data such as skewness and kurtosis were calculated, and box plot, were applied in order to assess the distribution of radiological parameters