Special Issue "Applying Artificial and Environmental Tracing Techniques in Hydrogeology"
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Hydrogeology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2021) | Viewed by 18823
Special Issue Editors

Interests: hydrogeology; hydrochemistry; tracers; isotopes; fractured and porous media; groundwater
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Interests: hydrogeology; hydrology; geomorphology; tracer; fractured rocks; isotope hydrology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Over the last decades, the use of tracers in groundwater sciences has abruptly increased, demonstrating their important usefulness in solving hydrogeological problems at different spatial and time scales. They are used in laboratory experiments (column tests) and field investigations (even at catchments and regional scales), and deal with water, lasting from few minutes to many millennia. They are recognized as powerful tools for obtaining information that cannot be gained by any other conventional means, such as depicting groundwater flow-paths and mixing processes among different end-members, identifying a connection between surficial water and groundwater, estimating the recharge areas of infiltrative water, and quantifying pre-infiltrative evaporative processes and groundwater residence times.
To date, many artificial (i.e., intentionally introduced into the hydrogeological system, such as dyes) and environmental (i.e., entering as a part of the hydrological cycle, like water isotopes) tracer have been tested, and the specific choice of a suitable one (or a subset of them; multi-tracing techniques) strictly depends on which hydrogeological investigation is to be done.
The aims of this Special Issue are to provide a current overview of the different tracer techniques in hydrogeology. We are particularly interested to case studies involving environmental and/or artificial tracers that demonstrate the capability of such methods in hydrogeological studies from mountainous and lowlands areas, in presence of fractured, karstic, and porous aquifers. Preference will be given to studies that are based on some selected artificial dyes (both in the form of solutes and particles, namely dissolved salts and ions, fluorescent dyes, synthetic DNA, and microspheres) and environmental tracers (pharmaceuticals and other synthetic compounds, and stable and radioactive isotopes).
We warmly invite authors to submit papers on the following areas, as well as on related broad topics:
- Groundwater–surface water interaction
- Recharge areas estimates
- Groundwater dating
- Groundwater pollution
- Water resources management
Dr. Federico Cervi
Prof. Dr. Alberto Tazioli
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- tracer
- hydrogeology
- groundwater
- isotope
- mean residence time
- dating
- pollution