Using groundwater age and other isotopic signatures to delineate groundwater flow and stratification

Isotopic tracers, such as stable isotopes of the water molecule and tritium, have been used in investigations of groundwater flow and transport and recharge water source for several decades. While these data can place hard constraints on groundwater flow rates, the degree of vertical flow between aquifers and across aquitards, and recharge source area(s), they are rarely used, even for validation, in conceptual or numerical models of groundwater flow. The Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment Program, sponsored by the California State Water Resources Control Board, and carried out in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey, has provided the means to gather an unprecedented number of tritium-helium groundwater ages in the basins of California. As the examples below illustrate, a collection of groundwater ages in a basin allows delineation of recharge areas (youngest ages), bulk flow rates and flowpaths, as well as a means of assessing susceptibility to anthropogenic contaminants.