Quantifying the groundwater seepage along a glacier originated river by integrated use of radium isotopes and hydrochemistry

Abstract

Glaciers, as the core part of the cryosphere, are very sensitive to climate change. As an indicator of glacier changes, the characteristics of glacier-originated rivers have profound significance to global climate change and local water resources. In this paper, the Mingyong River, a glacier-originated river replenished by groundwater, was selected to study the river hydrological cycle characteristics by integrating natural tracer radium isotopes with hydrochemical parameters. The results showed that there were significant differences in radium isotope activities and hydrochemical parameters between groundwater and river water, and the radium activities increased along the river, which reflected the fact that the river was supplied by groundwater seepage. We also found that the activity ratios of 224Ra/228Ra in river and groundwater were less than one unit, which indicated that the groundwater and river water circulated rapidly and that the radioactive equilibrium of short-time radium isotopes had not yet been reached. According to the geochemical behavior of radium in river water body, the mass balance equation of radium was established. 228Ra and 224Ra were used to estimate the groundwater seepage of different segments of the Mingyong River. The results demonstrated that the groundwater seepage fluxes calculated by 224Ra and 228Ra were similar and increased along the river from 123.12 to 657.68 m3 m−1 d−1. Our results have certain significance in revealing the characteristics of the local hydrological cycle and demonstrate that radium isotopes can be used as a tool to estimate the groundwater discharge of rivers in glacial environments.