Use of environmental and applied tracers for groundwater studies in Korea

With a growing demand for fresh water, mainly due to the rapidly developing economy, their interests focus on securing plentiful groundwater resources for drinking, domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes. In addition, remediation of contaminated groundwater has become another main interest. Hence, many environmental tracers, such as CFCs, Ra, Rn, CH4, delta O-18, delta D, H-3, He, delta C-13, delta Cl-37, and applied tracers, such as Cl-, Br- and rhodamine WT, have been widely used in the country for groundwater studies with different purposes. The main purposes include estimations of submarine groundwater discharge pathways and their quantification in coastal regions, especially in Jeju (volcanic island), as well as examinations of groundwater origin and mixing with stream water, groundwater age dating, tracing (apportioning) the contamination sources of chlorinated solvents (e.g., TCE, PCE) in industrial areas, and identification of reservoir (large dam) leakage. This paper reviews the use of environmental and applied tracers in Korean groundwater studies and provides perspectives on their use.