Use of Water Stable Isotopes in Hydrological Process

Dear Colleagues,

Water is vital for all known forms of life and is transported continuously through the different spheres of Earth with the water cycle: Evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, runoff, etc. As such, fresh water plays an important role in the world economy as well. Cities have been built around reliable sources of water since ancient times, and a considerable amount of available freshwater is used for irrigation and other agricultural activities to supply humanity.

Stable (¹⁶O, ¹⁷O, ¹⁸O, ¹H, ²H) and radioactive (³H) water isotopes as well as other tracers are powerful tools to track the path of water molecules in the water cycle from precipitation to surface and groundwater and, further, to drinking water supplies. They are commonly used to trace the source of water and its flow pathways or to quantify exchanges of water, solutes, and particulates between hydrological compartments during different hydrological processes. In the last decade, a considerable number of studies have been published on the use of water isotopes in hydrological processes and the number is ever growing due to the development of new measurement techniques (i.e., laser spectrometry) that allow measurements of stable isotope ratios at an even higher resolution. However, accurate and precise measurements are required to provide new data comparable in space and time or with data obtained with classical isotope ratio mass spectrometry.

This Special Issue addresses the current state-of-the-art methods, applications, and hydrological process interpretations using stable and radioactive water isotopes in the whole water cycle. Contributions related to measurement traceability (comparison of different measurement techniques), conceptual network development, and long-term maintenance on local to regional scale, as well as papers on different statistical data evaluation approaches, are highly welcome.

Dr. Polona Vreča
Dr. Zoltán Kern
Guest Editors

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