A review of the use of radiocarbon to estimate groundwater residence times in semi-arid and arid areas

Groundwater is an important resource in arid and semi-arid regions and determining its residence times is critical for sustainable use. Radiocarbon (14C) is currently the primary geochemical tracer for determining residence times of regional groundwater systems. The analysis of 14C contents of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) became more straightforward following the development of accelerator mass spectrometry, which has led to an increase in...