engleski

Isoscape of precipitation amount-weighted annual mean tritium (3H) activity from 1976 to 2017 for the Adriatic-Pannonian region

Tritium (3H) as a constituent of the water molecule is an important natural tracer in hydrological sciences. The anthropogenic tritium introduced into the atmosphere became unintentionally an excellent tracer of processes on the time scale of up to a 100 years. A prerequisite for tritium applications is to know the distribution of tritium activity in precipitation. Here we present the spatially continuous gridded database (isoscapes) for amount-weighted annual mean tritium activity in precipitation for the period 1976 to 2017 on 1×1 km grids for the Adriatic-Pannonian Region (using 39 stations), with a special focus on post-2010 years which are not represented by existing global models. Three stations were used to check the model performance independently confirming its capability to reproducing the spatiotemporal tritium variability in the region. This ‘Regional model’ is capable of providing reliable spatiotemporal input data for hydrogeological application at any place within Slovenia, Hungary and its surroundings. Results also show a decrease in the average spatial representativity of the stations regarding tritium activity in precipitation from ~600 km in 1970s when bomb-tritium was still prevailing in precipitation, to ~300 km in the 2010s. The post-2010 isoscapes can serve as benchmarks for background tritium activity for the region, helping to determine local increases of technogenic tritium from these backgrounds.

precipitation ; Hungary ; Slovenia ; geospatial tritium model ; tritium isoscape

Accepted for publication, discussion ended