Isotope Geochemistry of Groundwater: Latest Advances and Prospects

Dear Colleagues,

Groundwater plays an important role in global water supply and is the critical element supporting the Earth's ecosystem cycle. Anthropogenies and natural factors such as climate change, human pollution, and natural geochemical pollution have greatly impacted groundwater quality and its ecological value. Environmental isotopes, such as H, C, N, O, S, etc., are often used to research the mechanism of groundwater recharge and water–rock interactions, control groundwater pollution, and estimate groundwater age and renewal capacity. Hydrogen and oxygen stable isotopes are commonly used to understand water vapor sources of atmospheric precipitation, runoff segmentation, river basin runoff generation mode division, soil water transport in unsaturated zones, mutual transformation of different water bodies, and isotope hydrological models. ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and ²⁶Mg isotopes are often used to find out the water quality genesis and hydrogeochemical processes of groundwater. δ¹⁵N, δ³⁴S, δ¹⁸O, δ³⁷Cl, ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁶Pb, ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb, ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁴Pb, δ¹³C, δ²H, and δ⁸¹Br are also used to analyze groundwater pollution characteristics, identify groundwater pollution sources, and calculate the pollution source contribution rate. Radioactive isotopes such as ³H and ¹⁴C can not only obtain the age of groundwater but also understand the groundwater circulation.

The theme of this Special Issue is “Isotope Geochemistry of Groundwater: Latest Advances and Prospects”, focusing on new techniques and applications concerned with isotopes and geochemical variations in groundwater circulation. High-quality research papers using stable or radioactive isotopes to investigate groundwater geochemistry, hydrology, geohydrology, resource, and pollution conditions are welcome. Papers that focus on new applications of groundwater isotopes in different ecosystems and geological backgrounds are also of interest.

Dr. Qiufang He
Dr. Qiong Xiao
Prof. Dr. Jiacheng Lan
Guest Editors

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• geochemical
• stable isotope
• radioactive isotope
• groundwater
• hydrology
• quality
• pollution tracking
• geohydrology