Isotopes for Water Project Profile

Human activities are critically increasing demand on water resources, and at the same time escalating the input of pollutants into our waterways. Climate change is also placing an additional burden on stressed water resources and associated ecosystems. The Isotopes for Water project is applying isotopic and nuclear techniques to provide valuable scientific knowledge that underpins effective management of groundwater and rivers, marine and freshwater ecosystems, and the human activities that affect them.

Project Leader: Dr Suzanne Hollins

Objectives/aims:
To undertake research that demonstrates the benefits of isotopic and nuclear science for the management and improvement of water resources and aquatic ecosystems in Australia.

Task 1 - Isotope Hydrology Objective: To showcase the application of isotopic techniques to improve water balance calculations for key water catchments in Australia by providing key water balance and flow parameters of baseflow contribution, runoff ratio, evaporative loss, residence time & groundwater age.

Task 2 - Marine/Aquatic Systems Analysis Objective: To showcase the advantages of isotopic techniques in providing knowledge & data valuable to contaminant ecological risk assessments of water resource management bodies and a demonstrated contribution to more effective environmental risk-based management decisions in setting risk levels for pollutants in estuaries and catchment areas.

Project Team:
Dr Cath Hughes, Ron Szymczak, Dr Dioni Cendon, Nicola Creighton, Stuart Hankin, Dr Debashish Mazumder, Mark Peterson, John Twining, Dr Chris Waring, Robert Chisari, Dr Jagoda Crawford, Nithy Baladevan, Alan Boyd, Val Sadler, Craig Thompson.

Significant Collaborations:

• NSW Dept of Natural Resources
• GEWEX Murray-Darling Water
• NSW Dept of Environment and Conservation
• NSW Dept of Primary Industries (Fisheries)
• IAEA/RCA/AusAID

Publications:
Evaporative isotopic enrichment as a constraint on reach water balance along a dryland river. (2006) J.J. Gibson , M.A. Sadek, D.J.M. Stone, C. Hughes, S. Hankin, D.I. Cendon, S.E. Hollins. In Proceedings of International Workshop on Isotopic Effects in Evaporation: Revisiting the Craig-Gordon Model Four Decades after its Formulation, Pisa, Italy, pp 79-85.

Acworth RI, Hughes CE and Turner IL (2006) A radioisotope tracer investigation of groundwater flux adjacent to a tidal creek during a spring tide period. Hydrogeology Journal - on line.

Alquezar, R., Markich, S.J. and Booth, D.J. (2006) Metal accumulation in the smooth toadfish, Tetractenos glaber, in estuaries around Sydney, Australia, Environmental Pollution, 142(1), 123-131.

Szymczak, R., Twining, J., Hollins, S., Hughes, C.E., Mazumder, D. & Alquezar. R. (2006) Nuclear & isotopic techniques underpinning probabilistic ecological risk assessment in marine systems. In, CD-ROM Proceedings of the 15th Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference (Sydney, Oct '06), ISBN 1 877040 58 4, pp.6.

Mazumder, D., Saintilan, N. and Williams, R. J. (2006) Trophic relationships between itinerant fish and crab larvae in temperate Australian saltmarsh, Marine and Freshwater Research, 57,193-199.

For Further Information

Contact: Dr Suzanne Hollins

Phone: +61 2 9717 3701

Email: suzanne.hollins@ansto.gov.au