Isotope-enabled Models for Improved Estimates of Water Balance in Catchments

The use of stable isotope tools to identify the main flow paths and residence times of both surface and ground waters has been expanded to improve the simulated components of the water balance model at several scales: from small catchment areas to larger hydrological basins. The IAEA’s Isotope Hydrology Section has developed, in cooperation with various partners, the IAEA Water Balance Model with Isotopes (IWBMIso), which aims to promote and expand the use of common isotope tracers to obtain more precise estimates of the various water balance components and water fluxes in a range of climatic and hydrological settings. Once the model has been fully tested in different selected catchments and scenarios, which is the main objective of this CRP, it can be routinely incorporated into future technical cooperation projects dealing with isotope hydrology and water resources management.