Application of environmental tracers to study groundwater recharge in a semi-arid area of Central Tunisia

Abstract

Groundwater of the Tertiary-Quaternary Formations in the Jeloula basin (Central Tunisia), together with rain and surface waters, were analysed to investigate the mineralization processes, the origin of the water and its recharge sources. The water samples present a large spatial variability of chemical facies which is related to their interaction with the geological formations. The main sources of the water mineralization are the dissolution of evaporitic and carbonate minerals and cation exchange reactions. Stable isotopes indicate that most groundwater samples originate from infiltration of modern precipitation. Surface water samples from small dam reservoirs show a 18 O/ 2 H enrichment, which is typical of water exposed to open-surface evaporation in a semi-arid region. Considerable data of 3 H and 14 C allow the qualitative identification of the present-day recharge that is probably supplied by infiltration of recent flood waters in the Wadi El Hamra valley, and by direct infiltration of meteoric water through the local carbonate outcrops.

Guidance for the Integrated Use of Hydrological, Geochemical, and Isotopic Tools in Mining Operations

“…Practical results have been obtained at sites that present challenging water resource and usage issues (Araujo et al 2010;Farid et al 2014;Fernandes et al 2006Fernandes et al , 2008Lamego et al 2008;Otero and Soler 2002;Tsujimura et al 2007). At a Brazilian uranium mine site, stable isotope (δ 2 H and δ 18 O) data were used to characterize the hydrogeology of the area and establish correlation between waste management and groundwater contamination (Araujo et al 2010;Fernandes et al 2008;Lamego et al 2008).…”

Key hydrological processes in the Del Azul Creek basin, sub-humid Pampean Plain

“…Previous studies have addressed conventional hydrological scenarios featured by slopes greater than 0.5%, with well-defined basin boundaries and drainage networks. Most of these studies have focused on the identification of water recharge sources (Yin et al, 2011;Boukhari et al, 2014;Farid et al, 2014;Gonzales Amaya et al, 2018;Ma et al, 2018;Oiro et al, 2018;Barberá et al, 2018;Bahir et al, 2019); the estimation of aquifers recharge/discharge and water evaporation rates (Mayr et al, 2007;Yuan et al, 2011;Qian et al, 2014); the study of the effect of seasonal rainfall patterns on the isotopic composition of surface water and groundwater (Bajjali, 2006;Dogramaci et al, 2012;Hoke et al, 2013;Singh et al, 2013;Peng et al, 2015;Jódar et al, 2016;Bershaw and Lechler, 2019); and the study of the interactions between surface water and groundwater (Oyarzún et al, 2016;Wu et al, 2017).…”

Groundwater isotopic variations in a uranium mining site: subsidies for contamination studies

“…Especially under the arid and semi-arid conditions, isotope techniques constitute the best approach for identification of groundwater recharge, as well as to trace the pathways and identify the source and fate of pollutants in contamination studies [29,30,31].…”