Selection, Introduction and Commentary by P.K. Aggarwal, K.O. Fröhlich, J.R. Gat & R. Gonfiantini

Isotope Hydrology uses stable and radioactive isotopes of water and its dissolved constituents to trace hydrological processes, including the pathways of rainfall and snowmelt to, and interactions between, aquifers, lakes and rivers. The potential of using stable isotopes of water was recognized in the 1930s, but not fully explored until the 1950s, since when the scope and nature of isotope applications in hydrology have blossomed. Improvements in measure- ment techniques have facilitated use of isotopes in many contexts, and isotope hydrology has become mainstream, as documented in this volume of reprinted papers and accompanying commentaries.

Section A. Fundamentals includes the first papers on deuterium, ¹⁸O and tritium contents in natural waters (Friedman, 1953; Epstein & Mayeda, 1953; Libby, 1953), and Craig’s (1961) seminal paper which defined the global meteoric water line used to understand the source of natural waters. The papers that shaped our understanding of isotopes in precipitation and global circulation, e.g. Dansgaard (1964) and Craig & Gordon (1965), come in B. Atmospheric Water Cycle. The early interpretation of isotope sequences in rock and ice, including the iconic Greenland ice sheet core (Dansgaard et al., 1969), are included in C. Palaeoclimates.

D. River and Lake Hydrology contains influential papers on the use of isotopes to determine the origin of stream and lake waters. E. Groundwater deals with the origin of groundwaters, the earliest use of tritium, ¹⁴C, ⁸¹Kr and ³⁶Cl to date them, and isotope applications in pollution and groundwater remediation.

An excellent resource for graduate and post-graduate level courses in hydrology, reproducing many important papers which are otherwise difficult to access.

The coauthors have been involved with isotope hydrology for most of their professional lives while working with or for the International Atomic Energy Authority, IAEA. Pradeep Aggarwal, Head of the Isotope Hydrology Section since 1999, came to the IAEA from Argonne National Laboratory, USA. Klaus Froehlich came to the IAEA in 1988 from the Institute of Physics, Freiberg University, Germany, and was Section Head from 1994 to 1999. He was preceded Roberto Gonfiantini (1988–1993) who moved to the IAEA in 1970 from the University of Pisa, Italy. Joel Gat began his work with isotope applications in hydrology in the late 1950s while at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and has been associated with the IAEA ever since.

The Series Editor of the IAHS Benchmark Papers in Hydrology Series is Jeff McDonnell, Professor and Chair in Watershed Science at Oregon State University, USA, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and recipient of several awards.

IAHS BM7 ISBN 978-1-907161-29-2 (2011) A4 format, hardback, £70.00, incl. postage

The IAHS Benchmark Series is sponsored by

Contents

Series Editor’s Foreword by Jeffrey J. McDonnell

Isotope Hydrology – Introduction

• FUNDAMENTALS – Commentary



 

• Paper A1 Friedman, I. (1953) Deuterium content of natural waters and other substances. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 4, 89–103.

• Paper A2 Epstein, S. & Mayeda, T. (1953) Variation of the ¹⁸O content of waters from natural sources. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 4, 213–224.

• Paper A3 Craig, H. (1961) Isotopic variations in meteoric waters. Science 133, 1702–1703.

• Paper A4 Libby, W.F. (1953) The potential usefulness of natural tritium. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 39, 245–247.

• Paper A5 Begemann, F. & Libby, W. F. (1957) Continental water balance, groundwater inventory and storage times, surface ocean mixing rates and worldwide water circulation patterns from cosmic-ray and bomb tritium. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 12, 277–296.

• Paper A6 Brinkmann, R., Münnich, K. O. & Vogel, J. C. (1959) 14C-Alterbestimmung von Grundwasser . Naturwissenschaften 46, 10–12 (in German). English translation provided: 14C age determination of groundwater.


 

• THE ATMOSPHERIC WATER CYCLE – Commentary



 

• Paper B1 Dansgaard, W. (1964) Stable isotopes in precipitation. Tellus 16, 436–468.

• Paper B2 Craig, H. & Gordon, L. I. (1965) Deuterium and oxygen-18 variations in the ocean and the marine atmosphere. In: Stable Isotopes in Oceanographic Studies and Paleotemperatures (ed. by E. Tongiorgi), CNR-Laboratorio di Geologia Nucleare, Pisa, 9–130. Pages reproduced here: 65–130.

• Paper B3 Salati, E., Dall’Olio, A., Matsui, E. & Gat, J. R. (1979) Recycling of water in the Amazon Basin: An isotopic study. Water Resources Research 15, 1250–1258.

• Paper B4 Gonfiantini, R., Gratziu, S. & Tongiorgi, E. (1965) Oxygen isotopic composition of water in leaves. In: Isotopes and Radiation in Soil–Plant Nutrition Studies (Ankara, 28 June–2 July 1965), Proceedings Series, IAEA, Vienna, 405–410.

• Paper B5 Joussaume, S., Sadourny, R. & Jouzel, J. (1984) A general circulation model of water isotope cycles in the atmosphere. Nature 311, 24–29.

• Paper B6 Eriksson, E. (1965) An account of the major pulses of tritium and their effect in the atmosphere. Tellus 17, 118–130.


 

• PALAEOCLIMATE – Commentary



 

• Paper C1 Urey, H.C. Lowenstam, H. A., Epstein, S. & McKinney, C. R. (1951) Measurement of paleotemperatures and temperatures of the Upper Cretaceous of England, Denmark, and the southeastern United States. Bulletin of the Geological Society of America 62, 399–416.

• Paper C2 Epstein, S. (1956) Variations of the ¹⁸O/¹⁶O ratio in fresh water and ice. Nuclear Science Series vol. 19, 20–28. National Academy of Sciences.

• Paper C3 Dansgaard, W., Johnsen, S. J., Møller, J. & Langway, C. C. (1969) One thousand centuries of climatic record from Camp Century on the Greenland ice sheet. Science 166, 377–381.

• Paper C4 Thompson, L. G., Mosley-Thompson, E., Dansgaard, W. & Grootes, P. M. (1986) The “Little Ice Age” as recorded in the stratigraphy of the tropical Quelccaya Ice Cap. Science 234, 361–364.

• Paper C5 Sonntag, C., Klitzsch, E., Löhnert, E. P., El-Shazly, E. M., Münnich, K. O., Junghans, C., Thorweihe, U., Weistroffer, K. & Swailem, F. M. (1979) Palaeoclimatic information from deuterium and oxygen-18 in carbon-14 dated North Saharian groundwaters. Groundwater formation in the past. in: Isotope Hydrology 1978 (Neuherberg, 19–23 June 1978), Proceedings Series, IAEA, Vienna, 569–581.

• Paper C6 Rozanski, K. (1985) Deuterium and oxygen-18 in European groundwaters: links to atmospheric circulation in the past. Chemical Geology (Isotope Geoscience Section) 53, 349–363.


 

• RIVER AND LAKE HYDROLOGY – Commentary



 

• Paper D1 Dinçer, T., Payne, B. R., Florkowski, T., Martinec, J. & Tongiorgi, E. (1970) Snowmelt runoff from measurements of tritium and oxygen-18. Water Resources Research 6, 110–124.

• Paper D2 Fritz, P., Cherry, J. A., Weyer, K. U. & Sklash, M. G. (1976) Storm runoff analysis using environmental isotopes and major ions. In: Interpretation of Environmental Isotope and Hydrochemical Data in Groundwater Hydrology (Vienna, 27–31 January 1975), Proceedings Series, IAEA, Vienna, 111–130.

• Paper D3 Brown, R. M. (1970) Distribution of hydrogen isotopes in Canadian waters. In: Isotope Hydrology 1970 (Vienna, 9–13 March 1970), Proceedings Series, IAEA, Vienna, 3–21.

• Paper D4 Gat, J. R. (1970) Environmental isotope balance of Lake Tiberias. In: Isotopes in Hydrology 1970 (Vienna, 9–13 March 1970), Proceedings Series, IAEA, Vienna, 109–127.


 

• GROUNDWATER – Commentary



 

• Paper E1 Nir, A. (1964) On the interpretation of tritium “age” measurements of groundwater. Journal of Geophysical Research 69, 2589–2585.

• Paper E2 Tolstikhin, I. N. & Kamensky, I. L. (1969) Determination of groundwater age by the T-³He method. Geochemistry International 6, 810–811.

• Paper E3 Schlosser, P., Stute, M., Sonntag, C. & Münnich, K. O. (1989) Tritiogenic ³He in shallow groundwater. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 94, 245–256.

• Paper E4 Fontes, J.-Ch. & Garnier, J.-M. (1979) Determination of the initial ¹⁴C activity of the total dissolved carbon: A review of the existing models and a new approach. Water Resources Research 15, 399–413.

• Paper E5 Plummer, L. N., Prestemon, E. C. & Parkhurst, D. L. (1991) An interactive code (NETPATH) for modelling net geochemical reactions along a flow path. US Geological Survey, Water-Resources Investigations Report, 91-4078.

• Paper E6 Collon, P. Kutschera, W., Loosli, H. H., Lehmann, R. E., Purtschert, R., Love, A., Sampson, L., Anthony, D., Cole, D., Davids, B., Morrissey, D. J., Sherrill, B. M., Steiner, M., Pardo, R. C. & Paul, M. (2000) ⁸¹Kr in the great Artesian Basin, Australia: a new method for dating very old groundwater. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 182, 103–113.

• Paper E7 Phillips, F. M., Bentley, H. W., Davis, S. N., Elmore, D. & Swannick, G. B. (1986) Chlorine-36 dating of very old groundwater. II Milk River aquifer, Alberta. Water Resources Research 22, 2003–2016.

• Paper E8 Gonfiantini, R., Conrad, G., Fontes, J.-Ch., Sauzay, G. & Payne, B. R. (1974) Etude isotopique de la nappe du Continental Intercalaire et de ses relations avec les autres nappes du Sahara Septentrional. In: Isotope Techniques in Groundwater Hydrology 1974 (Vienna, 11–15 March 1974), Proceedings Series, IAEA, Vienna, 227–241 (in French). English translation provided: Isotopic investigation of the Continental Intercalaire aquifer and its relation to other aquifers in northern Sahara.

• Paper E9 Aggarwal, P. K., Fuller, M. E., Gurgas, M. M., Manning, J. F. & Dillon, M. A. (1997) Use of stable oxygen and carbon isotope analyses for monitoring the pathways and rates of intrinsic and enhanced in situ biodegradation. Environmental Science and Technology 31, 590–596.

• Paper E10 Payne, B. R., Quijano, L. & Latorre, C. (1979) Environmental isotopes in a study of origin of salinity of groundwater in the Mexicali Valley. Journal of Hydrology 41, 201–215.

• Paper E11 Kohl, D. H., Shearer, G. B. & Commoner, B. (1971) Fertilizer nitrogen contribution to nitrate in surface water in a cornbelt watershed. Science 174, 1331–1334.

• Paper E12 Böttcher, J., Strebel, O., Voerkelius, S. & Schmidt, H.-L. (1990) Using isotope fractionation of nitrate-nitrogen and nitrate-oxygen for evaluation of microbial denitrification in a sandy aquifer. Journal of Hydrology, 114, 413–424.