5.

11 ENVIRONMENTAL ISOTOPES 311

In order to obtain permissible water quality for
agricultural uses from the artificial mixture it is
sufficient to substitute (EC)M ¼ 2000 mmhos/cm in
28º

Ar
the (EC)r equation (Eq. (5.17)), which leads to the

a
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bi
Ki n

a
ng G u lf dimensionless value 19.54. With this value at
do Riyadh
m hand, Figure 5.16 gives the volume ratio value as
24º of
Re

Wadi Sa
ud 2  101, which is greater than the previous ratio
d

Assafra iA value for good water quality mixture. This volume

Wadi Fatimah r a b
20º Je ia ratio implies that VS ¼ 2  101VP. This statement
dd
ah N is tantamount to saying that water available for
Se

agricultural uses would be increased by 20% by

a

16º
12º
38º 42º 46º
FIGURE 5.17 Location of the study area.
than the Wadi As-Safra waters. Two of the wells in
the adjacent aquifers have EC values as
(EC)S ¼ 9000 mmhos/cm and (EC)P ¼ 300 mmhos/
cm. They are about 1000 m apart from each other.
From the classification in Table 5.6 one of the wells
in Wadi As-Safra is close to excellent type since it
has an EC of 300 mmhos/cm whereas the other
one is not usable at all. By means of artificial
mixture it is possible to obtain any EC value be-
tween 300 and 9000 mmhos/cm depending on the
volume mixture ratio.
A good groundwater quality of
(EC)M ¼ 750 mmhos/cm was chosen as the repre-
sentative artificially mixed water. In order to
attain this value, saline water (well with
9000 mmhos/cm) must be mixed with fresh water.
If they are mixed at equal volumes then (EC)M
would be (9000 þ 300)/2 ¼ 4650 mmhos/cm. This
is less than the volume ratio that should be
considered as Vr ¼ VS/VP. The application of the
aforementioned electrical conductivity ratio
Eq. (5.17) yields (EC)r ¼ 5.17. The corresponding
Copyright @ 2014. Elsevier.
en mixing potable and saline water to yield a mixture
f Ad
lf o with (EC)M ¼ 2.000 mmhos/cm.
Gu
0 500 km Finally, the mixture of the same groundwater
50 54º 56º sources to obtain (EC)M ¼ 3000 mmhos/cm after
similar calculations, one sees that VS ¼ 3.9  101VP.
Thus, the volume of water available for use in the
permissible category can be increased by 39% by
mixing saline and potable waters. The complete re-
lationships between the saline and fresh waters on
the basis of groundwater quality have been shown in
Figure 5.18.
The discharges or volumes are without units in
this figure which means that any unit can be
employed. Any point within the same quality re-
gion gives the volume ratio as well as the quality.
According to this ratio, the two volume amounts
from each well can be determined rather arbi-
trarily. For instance, if the potable water well is
pumped at 500 l/min then the saline water well
must pump between 0 and 23 l/min for good
quality after artificial mixture; between 23 and
100 l/min for moderate water quality; and finally
between 100 and 195 l/min for permissible water
quality for the artificial mixture.
5.11 ENVIRONMENTAL ISOTOPES
Various researchers indicated that the envi-

volume ratio from Figure 5.16 is Vr ¼ 4.7  102 ronmental isotopes (d18O and dD) can be used
which implies that VS ¼ 4.7  102VP. Thus, the to know the attitude of recharge (Musgrove
volume of water available for use in the good and Banner, 1993; Scholl et al., 1996). In isotope
category can be increased by 4.7% by mixing hydrology, the depletion of d18O and dD with
saline and potable water from different sources. altitude has been used to show the groundwater

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 312
500
400
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300
QS or VS
200
100
0
0 200
FIGURE 5.18 Quality and discharge relationship.
from different sources as well as the identifica-
tion of groundwater flow system. Since deute-
rium is not affected by watererock interaction
its use has been preferred over oxygen-18 by
many researchers (Lyles and Hess, 1988; Noack,
1988; Kirk and Campana, 1990; Thomas et al.,
1986). As stated by Clark and Fritz (1997) the
altitude effect of d18O ranges generally between
0.1% and 0.5% for each 100 m gained. This figure
is valid for humid regions. However, in arid and
semiarid regions the isotopic composition is
affected by other factors such as the rainfall
amount, variation and seasonality and air tem-
perature. Therefore, Al-Yamani (2001) has
shown that per 100 m increase in the Red Sea
area the decrease is 0.08%. Jones et al. (2000)
noticed that there are lower d18O values than
the small rainfall events.
These include natural variations in their iso-
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topic proportion depending on the fractionation
of isotopes during phase transitions in addition
to chemical and physical reactions. Due to chem-
ical and physical changes in different isotopes of
an element, the isotopic fractionations take place
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5. GROUNDWATER QUALITY
ful
ubt
Do
sible
Permis
Moderate
GOOD
400 600
QP or VP
and they are directly proportional to relative dif-
ferences in their masses. The main environ-
mental isotopes that are used in water studies
are stable hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), carbon
(C), and sulfur (S). Their average abundances
in percentages and half-lives are presented in
Table 5.23.
In this table radio-isotopes (3H and 14C) have
very low abundance. The fractionation process is
initiated by the large mass difference between
heavy and light isotopes. The typical example
of the fractionation process is the evaporation
process from the surface of oceans, which
enriches the heavy isotopes and the diffusion
out of isotopically light molecules from
seawater. According to Fritz and Fontes (1989),
there is a striking isotopic content uniformity
(d18O ¼ 0  1 and d2D ¼ 0  5 per mile) within
the ocean waters relative to Standard Mean
Ocean Water (SMOW)/Meteoric water is always
depleted in d18O and d2D relative to seawater.
On the other hand, according to Dansgaard
(1964), the degree of depletion depends on
different factors such as the altitude, latitude
 5.11 ENVIRONMENTAL ISOTOPES 313
TABLE 5.23 Environmental Isotope Features

Average Natural
Element Isotopes Atomic Mass Abundance (%) Half-Lives (year)
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H 1
H ¼ protium 1.00782 99.985 Stable
2
H ¼ deuterium 2.0141 0.015 Stable
3
H ¼ tritium 3.01603 0.00013 12.3
16
O O 15.9949 99.759 Stable
17
O 16.9991 0.037 Stable
18
O 17.9991 0.204 Stable
12
C C 12 98.892 Stable
13
C 13.0033 1.108 Stable
10
14
C 14.0032 w10 5730  40
32
S S 31.9721 95.02 Stable
33
S 32.9715 0.75 Stable
34
S 33.9679 4.21 Stable
35
S 35.9671 0.02 Stable

effect, temperature, rainfall amount, and dis-
tance from the sea effects. He found that,
 weighted d18O and d2D values in the precipita-
d18 O ¼ 0:695Tð CÞ  13:6
On the other hand, Craig (1961) suggested a
good relationship between the isotopic composi-
tion of d18O and d2D as,
d2 H ¼ 8d18 O þ 0:001
This expression is known as the average
Global Meteoric Water Line (GMWL) or as
(MWL). Later, Yurtsever (1975) used worldwide
data for the possible relationships of these effects
on d18O. He found that the main effect was due
to temperature variations among significant ef-
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On the other hand, Yurtsever and Gat (1981)
found a good linear relationship between the
(5.25) tion samples of the International Atomic Energy
Association (IAEA) network (Website: hhh. iaea.
org/programs/ri/gnip/gnipmain.htm) as
d2 H ¼ ð8:17  0:28Þd18 O þ ð10:55  0:64Þ&
(5.26)
(5.28)
with a correlation coefficient 0.997. Rozanski
et al. (1993) have updated the MWL by addi-
tional average precipitation data from World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) as,

fects of other variations. He gave the relationship d2 H ¼ 8:13d18 O þ 10:8& (5.29)

between d18O and mean surface temperature as,
d18 O ¼ ð0:521  0:014ÞTð CÞ  ð14:96  0:21Þ
(5.27)
The isotopic variations in natural waters
help to determine the ages, sources, mixtures,
and watererock and wateregas interactions.

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