Water and Environment News, No. 29, September 2011

The 13th quadrennial international symposium on isotope hydrology was hosted this year by the IAEA's Monaco Laboratory in recognition of its 50th anniversary. The symposium, entitled Isotopes in Hydrology, Marine Ecosystems, and Climate Change Studies, attracted 280 participants over five days, from 28 March to 1 April. Sessions were held on the role of isotopes in understanding and modelling climate change, marine ecosystems and water cycles, carbon dioxide sequestration and related aspects of the carbon cycle, isotopes and radionuclides in the marine environment, groundwater assessments for large aquifers, and analytical methods and instrumentation. Participants included Member State representatives, scientists, technicians and organizations whose activities are relevant to the meeting subject matter. The IAEA intends to publish an edited proceedings of the symposium. The Isotope Hydrology Laboratory (IHL) is turning its attention to noble gas isotopes dissolved in groundwater, which provide valuable information about climatic conditions during recharge, as well as the residence time of groundwater and its renewal rate. The isotope composition of noble gases can also serve as a geochemical fingerprint to decipher the origin of groundwater and flow patterns. The IHL has been successfully developing different gas sampling devices and testing them in the field. It is fully equipped with the equipment required to produce high quality isotope data from several types of noble gases in groundwater samples.