Spatial variability of environmental isotope and chemical content of precipitation in Jordan and evidence of slight change in climate

Bajjali, William

doi:10.1007/s13201-012-0046-1

Cited by 30 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Groundwater database information about the water chemistry and environmental isotopes (Appendix 1) was also integrated into a GIS. Weighted mean value (WMV) precipitation at Amman rainfall stations was used from published precipitation data (Bajjali 2012 2-and NO 3 -). The samples were collected from each well and generally, at least two casing volumes of water were extracted to ensure that the sample was from groundwater in the aquifer and not from water stored in the well.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is a term applied to salt input to the groundwater from precipitation. However the range of TDS in precipitation in 10 rainfall stations throughout the country ranged between 38 and 210 ppm (Bajjali 2012). For this reason, precipitation in the region could not be the source of the high salt levels in the local groundwater.…”

Section: Source Of Salinity In Groundwatermentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The stable isotope data for all groundwater in conjunction with weighted mean value (WMV) of the rain in the Amman station for the period of 1987(Bajjali 2012) are plotted on a d 18 O-2 H diagram (Fig. 9).…”

Section: Environmental Stable and Radioactive Isotopesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Water quality and geochemistry evaluation of groundwater upstream and downstream of the Khirbet Al-Samra wastewater treatment plant/Jordan

2015

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Groundwater in the northeastern Amman-Zarqa basin is an important source of water for irrigation. The quality and quantity of water has deteriorated due to mismanagement and misunderstanding of the hydrogeological system. Overexploitation of groundwater resources upstream of the Khirbet Al-Samra wastewater treatment plant (KSWTP) has lowered the water table 43 m since the beginning of groundwater development in 1968. Heavy pumping of groundwater downstream of KSWTP has not dropped the water level due to constant recharge from the Zarqa river bed. The water level of groundwater is rising continuously at a rate of 20 cm per year since building the KSWTP in 1985. Groundwater salinity has also shifted the quality of the aquifer from fresh to brackish. Continual irrigation from the groundwater upstream of KSWTP dissolves accumulated salt from the soil formed by evaporation, and the contaminated water infiltrates back to the aquifer, thereby increasing both salt and nitrate concentrations. The intense irrigation from the reclaimed water downstream of KSWTP and leakage of treated wastewater from the Zarqa River to the shallow groundwater is a secondary source of salt and nitrates. The isotopic composition of groundwater varies over a wide range and is associated with the meteoric water line affected by Mediterranean Sea air moisture. The isotopic composition of groundwater is represented by evaporation line (EL) with a low slope of 3.6. The enrichment of groundwater in d18 O and dD is attributed mainly to the two processes of evaporation before infiltration of return flow and mixing of different types of water in KSWTP originating from different aquifers. The EL starts from a location more depleted than the weighted mean value of the Amman rainfall station on the Eastern Meteoric Water Line indicating that the recharge took place under the climate regime prevailing today in Jordan and the recharge of the groundwater originates from a greater elevation than that of the Amman station. Elevated high tritium levels observed in wells in close proximity to a regional fault system signify local recharge and short residence time. The Khaldyia dam is a local source for groundwater recharge.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Source Of Salinity In Groundwatermentioning

confidence: 97%

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Water quality and geochemistry evaluation of groundwater upstream and downstream of the Khirbet Al-Samra wastewater treatment plant/Jordan

2015

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“…The knowledge on the behaviours of such isotopes in P in this region is mostly due to the Bet-Dagan coastal station, as it is the unique station belonging to the Global Network for Isotopes in Precipitation (GNIP) network in this area (IAEA-WMO 2006). However, few previous studies were conducted in Syria (Kattan 1997b;Abou Zakhem and Hafez 2007;Al-Charideh and Abou Zakhem 2010) and some neighboring countries (Saad et al 2005;Bajjali 2012), but the information gained from these studies was not sufficient, because all these studies were based on short monitoring periods (1-3 yrs). The attempt, which was made by Lykoudis and Argiriou (2007), to produce modelled isotopic grids of data sets of P across the eastern Mediterranean region, led to unrealistic data sets.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors controlling stable isotopes variability in precipitation in Syria: Statistical analysis approach

Kattan

2019

J Earth Syst Sci

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The major characteristics of the stable isotopes (18 O and 2 H) and deuterium excess (d-excess or d) of rainfall samples collected from 16 stations during two periods (1989-1993 and 2003-2006) were statistically analysed to understand the factors controlling the temporal and spatial isotope variability in precipitation (P) in Syria. Rainfall waters at the mountainous regions are remarkably the most depleted in heavy stable isotopes, with also high d-excess values (d>20 0 / 00). The enriched rainfall waters (lower d-excess values), mostly referring to coastal and some inland areas, are subject to the evaporation of falling raindrops. Rainfalls at the southern stations have impressively the highest d-excess values (d>22 0 / 00), likely because of intensive interactions with the Mediterranean Sea (MS) moistures. The temperature (T) effect, shown by an average δ 18 O gradient of ≈0.34 ± 0.03 0 / 00 / • C, is very close to the Global Network for Isotopes in Precipitation value (0.3 0 / 00 / • C). The altitude effect, represented by a δ 18 O gradient of −0.18 ± 0.03 0 / 00 /100 m, fits well with the range given for most Mediterranean countries. Relative humidity (RH) and P-amount effects are characterised by an isotopic depletion, with a notable rise in the d-excess value with P and RH increases. The seasonal effect is shown by depleted δ 18 O and δ 2 H values during December-February and enriched δ 18 O and δ 2 H values at the end of April, with frequently low d-excess values (<8 0 / 00). T parameter seems to be the major factor that strongly controls the variability of the stable isotope compositions of P in Syria. The moisture from the MS and secondary evaporation conjunctly play additional roles, but of less importance than the T effect.

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“…3 H in precipitation has returned to the pre-bomb levels, and like stable isotopes it shows a clear yearly seasonality (e.g. Stamoulis et al, 2005;Bajjali, 2012). However, ambiguous age estimates may still be obtained with 3 H in the northern hemisphere because the current precipitation has similar 3 H concentrations than water recharged in the 1980s (Stewart et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the truncation of travel times with StorAge Selection functions using deuterium and tritium as tracers

Rodriguez

Pfister

Zehe

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Abstract. Catchment travel time distributions (TTDs) are an efficient concept to summarize the time-varying 3-dimensional transport of water and solutes to an outlet in a single function of water age and to estimate catchment storage by leveraging information contained in tracer data (e.g. 2H and 3H). It is argued that the increasing use of the stable isotopes of O and H compared to tritium as tracers has truncated our vision of streamflow TTDs, meaning that the long tails associated with old water are neglected. However, the reasons for the truncation of the TTD tails are still obscured by methodological and data limitations. In this study, we went beyond these limitations and tested the hypothesis that streamflow TTDs calculated using only deuterium (2H) or only tritium (3H) are different. We similarly tested if the mobile catchment storage (derived from the TTDs) associated with each tracer is different. For this we additionally constrained a model successfully developed to simulate high-frequency stream deuterium measurements with about 30 stream tritium measurements over the same period (2015–2017). We used data from the forested headwater Weierbach catchment (42 ha) in Luxembourg. The streamflow TTDs were estimated in unsteady conditions by using both tracers coherently within a framework based on StorAge Selection (SAS) functions. We found equal TTDs and equal mobile storage between the 2H- and 3H-derived estimates. The truncation hypothesis was thus rejected. The small differences we found could be explained by the calculation uncertainties and by a limited sampling frequency for tritium. Using both stable and radioactive isotopes of H as tracers reduced the age and storage uncertainties. Although tritium and stable isotopes had redundant information about younger water, using both tracers better exploited the more specific information about longer ages that 3H inherently contains, and it could be even better in the next decades. The two tracers thus had overall different information contents. Tritium was however slightly more informative and cost-effective than stable isotopes for travel time analysis. We thus reiterate the call of Stewart et al. (2012) to measure tritium in the streams for travel time analysis, and emphasize the need for high-frequency tritium sampling in future studies to match the resolution in stable isotopes.

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Spatial variability of environmental isotope and chemical content of precipitation in Jordan and evidence of slight change in climate

Cited by 30 publications

References 14 publications

Water quality and geochemistry evaluation of groundwater upstream and downstream of the Khirbet Al-Samra wastewater treatment plant/Jordan

Water quality and geochemistry evaluation of groundwater upstream and downstream of the Khirbet Al-Samra wastewater treatment plant/Jordan

Factors controlling stable isotopes variability in precipitation in Syria: Statistical analysis approach

Testing the truncation of travel times with StorAge Selection functions using deuterium and tritium as tracers

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