Talk:Isotope hydrology

More realistic / factual?

This page seems to be a bit over-energetic about the usefullness and wonderfullness of isotope hydrology. Water doesn't have a "fingerprint", since each water molecule made with the same isotopes is identical and the ratio of one isotope to another is _not_ a unique value. Given the finite precision of instrumentation, and obvious uncertainty, there is definitely a finite number of values a ratio of isotopes can take. Isotope hydrology is great and useful, but it is also limited in what it can do, and by how many assumptions the person who uses it is willing to make. --kris 18:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Isotope Hydrology Laboratory (IHL)

My very brief Google research into isotope hydrology shows that Canada and Greece both have governmental branches specifically looking into how isotope hydrology can be used to manage and track water resources, and no doubt there are others. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has an Isotope Hydrology Laboratory (IHL) as part of its Seiberdorf Laboratories in Vienna, Austria. Note that the IAEA has a separate laboratory to monitor environmental water quality around nuclear power reactors. Someone with more experience in this field may wish to add the IHL to Wiki, if not the various interested governmental units. Related sites are http://www.iaea.org/programmes/rial/pci/isotopehydrology/ http://www-naweb.iaea.org/napc/ih/IHS_programme_ihl2.html http://www-naweb.iaea.org/napc/ih/IHS_science2.html http://www.nwri.ca/isotopelab/isotope-e.html http://ipc.chem.demokritos.gr/Projects/isotopic/isotopic.html

Pnoble805 17:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)