Study of the Mechanism of Ground Water Recharge and Its Variability in Semi-Arid Regions Using Tritium and Stable Isotopic Tracers. Coordinated Programme for Studying Physical and Isotopic Behaviour of Soil Moisture in the Zone of

摘要

In this report results of tritium tagging experiments in the Thar Desert, Rajasthan, India are presented. They are compared with the results obtained at Ahmedabad, a region with about three times higher rainfall than the Thar Desert but still on the fringe of the desert in the semi-arid region of NW India. The moisture content of the soil in the Thar Desert is only about 2-6% as compared with 5-15% in Ahmedabad. The two models represent basic understanding of the evapotranspiration, run-off and soil moisture movement processes in the arid regions of Thar Desert. The studies indicate that even in a very low rainfall region the groundwater recharge can be quite substantial, amounting to about 7-15%. (Atomindex citation 16:001847)