Information on groundwater residence times and flow paths can be used to understand the hydrological and biogeochemical functioning of aquifers including impacts of subsurface heterogeneities, seasonal and long-term changing climatic conditions, groundwater-surface water interactions and many other processes.
Tracer and model based estimates on residence times and flow paths are valuable tools to protect groundwater dependent ecosystems, to estimate vulnerabilities and recovery times of aquifers impacted by pollution, to define drinking water protection areas and for planning sustainable groundwater use.
The session wants to bring together experiences of applied resource management and advanced research using a wide range of different techniques including new tracers and advances in modelling techniques in variable aquifers at various spatial scales. Especially, welcome are presentations with new or not so frequently used tracers of long or short half-life.