Tracing and quantifying lake water and groundwater fluxes in the area under mining dewatering pressure using coupled O and H stable isotope approach.
Oxygen and hydrogen stable isotopic compositions of precipitation, lake water and groundwater were used to quantitatively asses the water budget related to water inflow and water loss in natural lakes, and mixing between lake water and aquifer groundwater in a mining area of the Lignite Mine Konin, central Poland. While the isotopic composition of precipitation showed large seasonal variations (δ(2)H from-140 to+13 ‰ and δ(18)O from-19.3 to+7.6 ‰), the lake waters were variously affected by evaporation (δ(2)H from-44 to-21 ‰ and δ(18)O from-5.2 to-1.7 ‰) and the groundwater showed varying contribution from mixing with surface water (δ(2)H from-75 to-39 ‰ and δ(18)O from-10.4 to-4.8 ‰). The lake water budget was estimated using a Craig-Gordon model and isotopic mass balance constraint, which enabled us to identify various water sources and to quantify inflow and outflow for each lake. Moreover, we documented that a variable recharge of lake water into the Tertiary aquifer was dependent on mining drainage intensity. A comparison of coupled δ(2)H-δ(18)O data with hydrogeological results indicated better precision of the δ(2)H-based calculations.