[en] The possibility of an upward flow of saline groundwater with long residence time and its mixing with young recharge waters has been studied in the Laxemar area, situated on the main land north/northwest of the Aespoe underground Hard Rock Laboratory. The knowledge of these near surface processes and transport pathways is essential in order to understand the interaction between recharge and discharge patterns of the groundwater and the possible effect from a faulty repository on the biosphere. Hydrogeological modelling in the literature suggests a major out flow regime along the Baltic coast and therefore, possible traces of deeper saline groundwaters could be expected. A total of 108 samples collected from surface, shallow and deep groundwaters from lakes, ditches, quarries, and wells have been analysed together with samples from the Baltic Sea. The project was challenging due to sampling (difficult to identify representative sampling locations), analytical (low concentrations are associated with high uncertainties) and modelling difficulties (strong dilution gives weak indications in analyses and hence in the models; complex mixing patterns due to several end-member mixing; and reactions which can alter the signature of the waters). The results indicated that the obtained Cl content which is known to be a water conservative tracer had a similar content at the depth of 500 m (repository depth) as at 1 m depth, in addition natural elements such as e.g. Rb and Cs correlated with Cl. By just correlating element concentrations with Cl measurements erroneous impressions of water conservative transport may occur. No conclusive proofs of transport of deep water up to the surface have been found in this study, but there is nothing that contradicts this assumption either. The waters sampled are between meteoric-sea water and meteoric-deep water. The model calculations show that if a transport takes place this is a slow process in the orders of thousands of years and the dilution is large. The modelling indicated that a small fraction (around 2%) of the measured values at the surface was derived from the 500 m depth. In addition water rock interaction processes along the flow paths retards the transport and it makes also the tracing of deep influences difficult. The same pattern occurred despite changing both the reference waters in the modelling and the physical extension of the modelled area (e.g. from 50 m down to 1,000 m). It is concluded from this study that Cl, Ca, SO₄, Rb, Cs and Th can be useful tracers for the transport processes from the repository level to the biosphere but only a minor fraction of their content in the surface waters may be from the repository level. Element content or a ratio between elements alone cannot be used to indicate the deep origin of groundwaters without compensating for possible sources along the flow path. A mixing or transport model for the site can be used for this compensation