New study on tritium: the most effective tracer of leachate contamination

The paper describes the geochemical and isotopic data processing combined with statistical analysis aimed to fine-tune the tritium background threshold limits to identify groundwater contamination due to leachate dispersion at a very high level of sensitivity. The adopted approach confirms that tritium content is an effective leachate tracer, both for the high contrast between groundwater and leachate, and for its conservative characteristics. These characteristics make tritium the leachate tracer par excellence, far preferable to any chemical, whose variations may be influenced by chemical and physical processes other than leachate contamination. These results are particularly important for the application of the "pollute- pays principle”.

Bibliographic reference:

Dotsika, E., Dalampakis, P., Spyridonos, E. Diamantopoulos, G., Karalis, P., Tassi, M., Raco, B., Arvanitis, A., Kolios, N., Michelot, J. L.. Chemical and isotopic characterization of the thermal fluids emerging along the North–Northeastern Greece. Sci Rep 11, 16291 (2021).

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95656-6

For more information:

Brunella Raco (CNR-IGG, brunella.raco@igg.cnr.it)