Use of Isotope Technique in Groundwater Investigation around Erbil City- Northern Iraq

Abstract

The fundamental characteristics of environmental isotopes in water resources management is dependable on the nature of geographical region of the catchment boundaries. The method of applying different isotopes has a main character in quantity and quality estimations of water resources that sometimes cannot be achieved by old techniques. Nowadays the detailed inquiry of surface water or groundwater difficulties can practically have been explained against the support of performing the isotopes. In this study, the environmental isotopes were measured and are used to predict the residence time (age) of groundwater in the areas around Erbil city in Kurdistan region- Iraq. Or to predict some of ground water characteristics. A total of 22 (10 wells and 12 springs) samples of water were taken at different places starting from Haji-Omran to Barzan. The samples collected through a glass bottles and covered to prevent the evaporation then transported to the laboratory in Vienna for the purpose of measuring the isotope contents in water molecule. The results show that, groundwater saves the 18O and deuterium (D) content out of which they were formed. The isotope content includes high degree in deuterium surplus (d) is about 20‰ which is representative for the areas having high elevation. also, the high concentration of isotopes was taken place at Haji-Omran and Jundian w that about 8.93 and 8.37 degrees respectively. The water in the well from Per-Daud has a 3H content of 0.8 TU which means that is an old water and its age is more than 40 years. Whereas, the tritium content of water taken from Haji-Omran was 13.4 TU that can be accounted as young water due to quickly recharge rate and the effects of precipitation at this location.

Keywords

• Isotope technique, Groundwater dating, Erbil city.