Chapter 15: Role of Stable Isotopes in Groundwater Resource Management

Abstract

Environmental isotopes are naturally occurring elements found in abundance in the environment. The use of stable isotopes is very useful to understand hydrology. The applicability of stable isotope in understanding the groundwater/surface water interaction is widely used for the anisotropic fractured medium. The isotopes of water (hydrogen and oxygen) are always changeable among reservoirs for their spatial and temporal variation. This could happen due to the changes in isotopic composition through kinetic or equilibrium processes. Therefore, the movement of water can be traced by the abundance of hydrogen and oxygen isotopes. The stable isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen in water are always helpful in the tracking of sources of groundwater recharge, interconnections between aquifers, the interaction between the surface and groundwater phases, determination of the groundwater age, source and mechanism of groundwater pollution, groundwater salinization, and to study the effects of evaporation on groundwater systems. Detail investigations of stable isotopic data are always helpful to acquire knowledge on regional groundwater circulation patterns and geochemical processes of an aquifer system. In this chapter, the role of stable isotopes in groundwater resources management has been discussed with a case study carried out in Aland taluk of Kalaburagi district, Karnataka, India.