NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL

TRACERS IN GROUND WATER

Submitted By:1. Amrit singh Choudhary

2. Amit Kumar Garg.
3. Aman Khandelwal

Overview of presentation

Introduction
Groundwater tracing-overview
Why is tracing imp.?
Types of tracers
Tracer tests
Applications
Conclusion

Introduction
The fundamental idea of the tracer technique is simple and clear.
water is marked with the aid of a tracer and its propagation is
followed.
it has useful means in almost all fields of applied hydrology and
hydrogeology.(groundwater, rivers, lakes, glaciers, etc.)
The most frequently treated questions are the following:

Where does the water flow?

Where does the water come from?
Is there a hydraulic connection between two points?
How do substances migrate in water?

Groundwater tracing - an overview

Groundwater tracers include any substance that can
become dissolved or suspended in water, or attached to
the water molecule, and recovered or measured from a
water sample that can be used to trace the source of
groundwater in terms of its specific or relative location
and time of recharge.
Groundwater tracers can include both artificially
introduced and naturally occurring substances.
Groundwater tracing as a science has been in practice
for more than a century.

Why is tracing important?

Tracing techniques can be used in all types of

hydrological and hydro geological
environments to obtain information about water
movement and contaminant transport.
water tracing was initially developed for the
investigation of karst aquifers.
Tracer tests in caves are mostly used to identify
active conduit networks.

Cont.
Example:- Florida boasts the highest
concentration of springs on the planet. People
drank the water without treatment. But
Florida's spring water quality has been
declining markedly for more than 10 years,
with the most notable problem being
increasing nitrates.

Type of Tracers

1.Natural Tracers
.it involves the use of naturally occurring
components of a water sample to determine
information about the source and age of the sample.
.Used in case of age-dating.
.Environmental isotopes are now used to trace not
only groundwater provenance, but also recharge
processes, subsurface processes, geochemical
reactions and reaction rates.

Cont
The most commonly used natural tracers are
isotopes. Some are:-

Oxygen Isotopes.
Isotopes of Hydrogen
Nitrogen
Carbonate, organic carbon and
hydrocarbon

Input

aquif
er

output

2. Artificial Tracers
they can be used to evaluate the extent to which
aquifers interact with surface water features, providing
information on groundwater flow paths, travel times,
velocities, dispersion, flow rates and the degree of
hydraulic connection.
they should have low toxicological impact.
This differs from natural tracers methods which rely
on the measurement and interpretation of background
concentrations of the chemical constituents of water,
such as major ions, stable or radioactive isotopes.

Cont
The purpose of using artificial tracers is to
answer three basic questions.
1. Where does the water go (say from a sinkhole)
or where does the water come from (say from
a spring)?
2. How long does it take to get there?
3. What happens to the water along
the way?

ARTIFICIAL TRACERS
Fluorescent Dyes
Carbonate, organic carbon and hydr
ocarbon

Sulphur
Nitrogen
Chlorine
Bromine, lithium and boron
Strontium

Radioisoto
pes

Tritium
Carbon-14
Chlorine-36 and iodine-129
Argon-39
Krypton
Uranium series isotopes

Dye tracer technique for assessing groundwater and surface water

Tracer tests
There are two basic types of dye tracer tests:1.Qualitative Tracer Tests.
2. Quantitative Tracer Tests.

Applications
Possible applications of the tracer technique in different aquifer types
Karstic aquifers
Regional surveys of groundwater flow
Establishment of conceptual models of karst systems
Detection of karstic networks
Alluvial aquifers
Regional investigations of groundwater flow
Delimitation of catchments (containment areas)
Delimitation of contaminant leakage zones
Hillslope groundwater and fractured aquifers
Detection of flow paths in hard rocks
Investigation of water bearing structures (e.g. joints, fractures and
layering)

Main focuses of tracer investigations in hydrogeology

Catch works (wells, springs)

Groundwater protection zones
Recharge area
Risk assessments, simulation of hazards
Ancient waste deposits, contaminated sites
Interaction between ground and surface water
Evidence of foreign water
Determination of aquifer parameters/ groundwater modelling
Expertise in case of damage
Boreholes, groundwater observation network

Tritium-Helium age Dating

Ground water Tracing using

Redon

Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages

Disadvantages

Application and monitoring can be designed

in a controlled way.

Tracer tests can have overheads in terms of

cost and time, particularly when
investigating longer or slower groundwater
flow paths.

Tracers can be used to assess the

significance of local geological features on
stream-aquifer connectivity.

Requires careful planning and design with

some pre-test knowledge of hydrogeology.

Seepage can be assessed either qualitatively

or quantitatively .

Unanticipated short travel times can lead to

high tracer concentrations being released to
watercourses and potentially into public
water supplies.

Tracers can provide direct evidence for the

movement of water from one point to
another.

Dyes can have complex

chemical interactions which
tend to be pH-dependent or
can be selectively sorbed with
geological material.

Tracers can be used to track pollutants such

as human pathogens, where the movement
and fate of these pollutants may not match
water flow.

Conclusion
Groundwater, in its natural state, contains environmental isotopes and
conclusions may be drawn from the distribution variations.
The distribution of the stable isotopes, deuterium and oxygen-18, of
groundwater correlated with average isotopic data of precipitation
define the origin and movement of subsurface waters.
Radioisotopes, such as tritium, provide valuable information on recent
recharge whereas carbon-14 data show slow-moving groundwater.
The use of isotope techniques which complement hydrochemical and
hydrogeological studies should be encouraged in both surface water
and groundwater resource development.

References
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Thank you