Use of Chlorofluorocarbons in Hydrology : a Guidebook
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
USE OF CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS IN HYDROLOGY A Guidebook USE OF CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS IN HYDROLOGY A GUIDEBOOK 2005 Edition The following States are Members of the International Atomic Energy Agency: AFGHANISTAN GREECE PANAMA ALBANIA GUATEMALA PARAGUAY ALGERIA HAITI PERU ANGOLA HOLY SEE PHILIPPINES ARGENTINA HONDURAS POLAND ARMENIA HUNGARY PORTUGAL AUSTRALIA ICELAND QATAR AUSTRIA INDIA REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA AZERBAIJAN INDONESIA ROMANIA BANGLADESH IRAN, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF RUSSIAN FEDERATION BELARUS IRAQ SAUDI ARABIA BELGIUM IRELAND SENEGAL BENIN ISRAEL SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO BOLIVIA ITALY SEYCHELLES BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA JAMAICA SIERRA LEONE BOTSWANA JAPAN BRAZIL JORDAN SINGAPORE BULGARIA KAZAKHSTAN SLOVAKIA BURKINA FASO KENYA SLOVENIA CAMEROON KOREA, REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA CANADA KUWAIT SPAIN CENTRAL AFRICAN KYRGYZSTAN SRI LANKA REPUBLIC LATVIA SUDAN CHAD LEBANON SWEDEN CHILE LIBERIA SWITZERLAND CHINA LIBYAN ARAB JAMAHIRIYA SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC COLOMBIA LIECHTENSTEIN TAJIKISTAN COSTA RICA LITHUANIA THAILAND CÔTE D’IVOIRE LUXEMBOURG THE FORMER YUGOSLAV CROATIA MADAGASCAR REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA CUBA MALAYSIA TUNISIA CYPRUS MALI TURKEY CZECH REPUBLIC MALTA UGANDA DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC MARSHALL ISLANDS UKRAINE OF THE CONGO MAURITANIA UNITED ARAB EMIRATES DENMARK MAURITIUS UNITED KINGDOM OF DOMINICAN REPUBLIC MEXICO GREAT BRITAIN AND ECUADOR MONACO NORTHERN IRELAND EGYPT MONGOLIA UNITED REPUBLIC EL SALVADOR MOROCCO ERITREA MYANMAR OF TANZANIA ESTONIA NAMIBIA UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ETHIOPIA NETHERLANDS URUGUAY FINLAND NEW ZEALAND UZBEKISTAN FRANCE NICARAGUA VENEZUELA GABON NIGER VIETNAM GEORGIA NIGERIA YEMEN GERMANY NORWAY ZAMBIA GHANA PAKISTAN ZIMBABWE The Agency’s Statute was approved on 23 October 1956 by the Conference on the Statute of the IAEA held at United Nations Headquarters, New York; it entered into force on 29 July 1957. The Headquarters of the Agency are situated in Vienna. Its principal objective is “to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world’’. USE OF CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS IN HYDROLOGY A GUIDEBOOK 2005 Edition INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY VIENNA, 2006 COPYRIGHT NOTICE All IAEA scientific and technical publications are protected by the terms of the Universal Copyright Convention as adopted in 1952 (Berne) and as revised in 1972 (Paris). The copyright has since been extended by the World Intellectual Property Organization (Geneva) to include electronic and virtual intellectual property. Permission to use whole or parts of texts contained in IAEA publications in printed or electronic form must be obtained and is usually subject to royalty agreements. Proposals for non-commercial reproductions and translations are welcomed and will be considered on a case by case basis. Enquiries should be addressed by email to the Publishing Section, IAEA, at [email protected] or by post to: Sales and Promotion Unit, Publishing Section International Atomic Energy Agency Wagramer Strasse 5 P.O. Box 100 A-1400 Vienna Austria fax: +43 1 2600 29302 tel.: +43 1 2600 22417 http://www.iaea.org/books © IAEA, 2006 Printed by the IAEA in Austria March 2006 STI/PUB/1238 IAEA Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Use of chlorofluorocarbons in hydrology : a guidebook. — Vienna : International Atomic Energy Agency, 2006. p. ; 24 cm. STI/PUB/1238 ISBN 92–0–1000805–8 Includes bibliographical references. 1. Chlorofluorocarbons. — 2. Tritium. — 3. Radioactive tracers in hydrology. — 4. Groundwater recharge. I. International Atomic Energy Agency. IAEAL 06–00427 FOREWORD Groundwater is used to meet nearly half of the global freshwater demand for domestic and agricultural use. Sustainable use of groundwater resources is, therefore, an important part of the overall efforts required for sustainable human development. Hydrological investigations to assess groundwater resources and to develop sustainable management strategies require a variety of scientific information, including the occurrence and rate of aquifer recharge. In arid and semi-arid areas, natural tracers, such as the environmentally stable isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen and the radioactive isotope tritium, are unique tools for recharge characterization. The atmospheric input of tritium from thermonuclear bomb tests of the 1950s and early 1960s provided an ideal tracer for determining the presence and rate of modern recharge in shallow aquifers. As the atmospheric concentration of tritium declined, its use for quantifying recharge by estimating the age of groundwater became less reliable. Alternative tools, such as concentrations of the daughter product of tritium (3He) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were devised for quantifying modern groundwater recharge. Measurement of the concentrations of a number of CFCs, which are synthetic compounds used in the industry, provides a complementary tool for corroborating and/or validating recharge estimations based on isotope data. The development of the CFC technique as a tool for dating groundwater has occurred over approximately the last 20 years and a number of research publications have documented its use in specific aquifers. This publication is intended to facilitate a comparative analysis of CFC and isotope techniques and a wider use of the CFC technique under appropriate conditions by providing a description of its scientific basis, sampling and measurement methods, interpretation and limitations of data, and a variety of case studies. This publication is an addition to a number of other IAEA reports and guidebooks that have been published over the last forty years to facilitate the use of isotopes in hydrology. It is aimed at students, teachers and practitioners, and should serve as a reference document for more advanced researchers. The IAEA officers responsible for this publication were M. Gröning, L.F. Han and P. Aggarwal of the Agency’s Laboratories and the Division of Physical and Chemical Sciences. EDITORIAL NOTE The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the IAEA, the governments of the nominating Member States or the nominating organizations. Owing to their number, the references in this publication have been left, as an exception, in the ‘author-date’ style. They have not been converted into the IAEA’s numbered reference style. The use of particular designations of countries or territories does not imply any judgement by the publisher, the IAEA, as to the legal status of such countries or territories, of their authorities and institutions or of the delimitation of their boundaries. The mention of names of specific companies or products (whether or not indicated as registered) does not imply any intention to infringe proprietary rights, nor should it be construed as an endorsement or recommendation on the part of the IAEA. The authors are responsible for having obtained the necessary permission for the IAEA to reproduce, translate or use material from sources already protected by copyrights. CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS IN AQUATIC ENVIRONMENTS . 1 L.N. Plummer, E. Busenberg 1.1. Introduction. 1 1.2. Terminology. 4 1.3. Importance of the multi-tracer approach . 6 1.4. How to use this guidebook . 7 CHAPTER 2. CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS IN THE ATMOSPHERE. 9 L.N. Plummer, E. Busenberg 2.1. History of atmospheric CFC concentrations. 9 2.2. Characteristics of the distribution of CFCs in the atmosphere . 11 2.3. Time dependent CFC concentration ratios in the atmosphere . 14 CHAPTER 3. PRINCIPLES OF CHLOROFLUOROCARBON DATING. 17 L.N. Plummer, E. Busenberg, P.G. Cook 3.1. Basic assumption . 17 3.2. Dating with CFC concentrations . 18 3.3. Dating with CFC concentration ratios. 26 3.4. Setting the ‘clock’ . 26 3.5. Groundwater age . 28 3.6. Future applications of CFCs . 29 CHAPTER 4. EFFECTS AND PROCESSES THAT CAN MODIFY APPARENT CFC AGE. 31 P.G. Cook, L.N. Plummer, D.K. Solomon, E. Busenberg, L.F. Han 4.1. Contamination . 31 4.2. Unsaturated zone transport of CFCs . 37 4.3. Recharge temperature . 42 4.4. Excess air . 47 4.5. Sorption . 50 4.6. Microbial degradation . 51 4.7. Matrix diffusion . 53 4.8. Hydrodynamic dispersion . 54 4.9. Summary . 56 CHAPTER 5. CFCs IN BINARY MIXTURES OF YOUNG AND OLD GROUNDWATER . 59 L.N. Plummer, E. Busenberg, L.F. Han 5.1. Groundwater mixtures. 59 5.2. Binary mixtures. 60 5.3. General case of binary mixing. 63 5.4. Tracer plots . 65 5.5. Multi-tracer plots . 68 5.6. Summary of binary mixing . 71 CHAPTER 6. MODELS OF GROUNDWATER AGES AND RESIDENCE TIMES . 73 D.K. Solomon, P.G. Cook, L.N. Plummer 6.1. Introduction. 73 6.2. Unconfined aquifer with constant thickness . 75 6.3. Unconfined aquifer with linearly increasing thickness . 79 6.4. Confined aquifer with constant thickness . 81 6.5. Confined aquifer with constant thickness in confined part . 83 6.6. Discussion . 85 6.7. Summary . 88 CHAPTER 7. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF CFCs IN HYDROLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS. 89 D.K. Solomon, L.N. Plummer, E. Busenberg, P.G. Cook 7.1. Estimation of recharge rate from rate of downward movement using vertical CFC profiles . 89 7.2. Application of a discharge model. 91 7.3. Tracing flow direction and velocity using spatial variations — losing and gaining streams. 92 7.4. Identifying recharge areas . 95 7.5. Identifying ‘secure’ drinking water sources — recognizing leakage of shallow water into water supply wells . 97 7.6. Reconstructing the history of contaminant loading to an aquifer . 99 7.7. Calibrating groundwater flow models . 101 CHAPTER 8. DATA INTERPRETATION IN REPRESENTATIVE CASES. 105 L.N. Plummer, E. Busenberg, L.F. Han 8.1. Introduction. 105 8.2. Shallow, aerobic infiltration water (sample 1) . 106 8.3. Dated waters from springs, Shenandoah National Park and vicinity, Virginia, USA (samples 2 and 3) . 106 8.4. Mixtures from fractured rock and karstic aquifers (samples 4–7). 119 8.5. Water contaminated with one or more CFCs (samples 8–16). 120 8.6. Microbial degradation of CFCs (samples 17–19) . 124 8.7. Groundwater beneath deep unsaturated zones (samples 20–22). 125 8.8. Gas stripping and microbial degradation (samples 23 and 24) . 127 8.9. Screening patterns of CFC apparent ages for an initial assessment . 128 8.10. Guidelines for assignment of apparent CFC age . 130 CHAPTER 9.