Variations of Environmental Isotopes in Precipitation and Surface Water in Plain Area Influenced by Summer Monsoon: A Case Study in Jinjiang River Basin, Chengdu, China

• Main Author: Chengcheng Xia, Jie Mei, Wen Liu, Jing Zhou and Guodong Liu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Technoscience Publications 2019-09-01
• Series: Nature Environment and Pollution Technology
• Subjects: environment
• Online Access: http://neptjournal.com/upload-images/NL-69-16-(14)-D-915.pdf

Monsoon is a typical wind system, which influences a quarter of continental area on the earth and is closely bound up with the life of one half of the earth’s population. Therefore, it is important to explore the information on monsoon activities. In the present study, samples of precipitation and surface water collected in the summer of 2018 were analysed to reveal the variation of stable isotopes influenced by summer monsoon and its relationship with the sources of water vapour. The temporal variation of stable isotopes in precipitation is great during the monsoon period, which is primarily the result of the varying proportions of water vapour from continental and oceanic sources. The heavy isotopes in precipitation grew gradually as the proportion of ocean-source water vapour increased from May to August. The meteorological parameters of temperature and precipitation amount are not the main factors that influence the isotopic composition in precipitation, for the determination coefficient (R2 value) is low. The isotopic characteristics of river water are similar to those of precipitation, indicating that the rivers are mainly recharged by precipitation. The temporal-spatial variations of isotopes surface water are complex for the joint influence of the distribution of isotopes in precipitation, isotopic compositions of the river source, rainfall amount and evaporation, which can be considered as the indirect effects of monsoon activities.