Abstract
Jeffrey M. McKenzie · Donald I. Siegel ·D. Jonathan McKenzieWe thank Seifu Kebede and Yves Travi for theircomments regarding our paper: “A geochemical survey ofspring water from the main Ethiopian rift valley, southernEthiopia: implications for well-head protection” (McKen-zie et al. 2001). However, it appears that Kebede andTravi misinterpreted the intent of our paper, which was toaddress how local isotopic variations and changes inshallow spring-water chemistry in southern Ethiopia maybe used to address issues related to well-head protection.Kebede and Travi criticize us for not citing the largerbody of literature on the isotopic composition of waterselsewhere in Ethiopia. Because our paper was written as alocal isotopic and geochemical case study, we areperplexed why Kebede and Travi suggest that we shouldcite isotopic and geochemical composition of waters fromlakes, boreholes, and thermal springs from northern andcentral Ethiopia in different physiographic and climateregions. Much of the literature to which Kebede and Travirefer is not pertinent to the intent and content of ourpaper, and some of it is not easily found in normalchannels of searching for peer-reviewed earth scienceliterature. Kebede and Travi even suggested we cite datafrom ongoing unpublished research (IAEA TC projectETH/OO6 2002).Kebede and Travi also question our interpretation ofpublished stable isotope values for Ethiopian precipita-tion: These data are scarce with the exception of AddisAbaba, where precipitation has been analyzed intermit-tently since 1961 (IAEA/WMO 2001). For pragmaticreasons, these Addis Ababa isotope data have been usedas the precipitation end member in groundwater flow andhydrologic water budget studies in Ethiopia, and mostinvestigators have assumed that the Addis Ababa LocalMeteoric water line of dD=6.95 d
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