Stable isotope tracers: natural and anthropogenic recharge, Orange County, California

Abstract

Abstract Stable isotopic techniques have been utilized to locate occurrences and trace movements of a variety of naturally and anthropogenically recharged waters in aquifers of Orange County, California. This basin is of particular interest not only because it provides the dominant water supply for the two million residents of this well-populated county, but also because it is representative of a common arid environment where natural recharge is dominated by distant, high-elevation precipitation transported by a major river. Such arid basins are particularly sensitive to climatic and anthropogenic disturbance of their recharge and their subsurface hydrology. In order to identify distinctive waters, oxygen and hydrogen stable isotope ratios from Orange County wells have been compared with a regional database including an array of surface water samples representative of watershed runoff. Four distinctive subsurface water types can be resolved. Waters of “local” rainfall and imported, “Colorado” River aqueduct origins are easily distinguished from dominant, “native” Santa Ana river compositions by use of hydrogen and oxygen stable isotope analysis. Recent human interference with Santa Ana river flow and recharge is also marginally resolvable by isotopic techniques. Distinguishable isotopic signatures of “recent” Santa Ana recharge appear to be due to evaporative loss, perhaps during storage in the Prado Reservoir or in percolation ponds, prior to recharge into Orange County aquifers. Characterization of traceable isotopic signatures of distinct natural and anthropogenic recharge components provides a major advance towards use of such techniques for developing a well constrained, three-dimensional hydrologic model for this complex basin.