Estimation of aquifer recharge measured by the isotopic fractionation of water vapor and the hydrological balance of the soil in the dry tropical forest of Costa Rica

Abstract

It develop an approach of an hourly, lumped, conceptual, tracer-aided water balance model that simulates aquifer recharge in a dry tropical forest in Costa Rica. The model considers evaporative fractionation by estimating the isotopic content of the vapor losses from interception and the upper soil horizon, which is a process commonly overlooked. The incorporation of fractionation in the model resulted in satisfactory representations of the behavior and variability of the isotopic signals in atmospheric water vapor. A first effort was made to estimate the recharge based on the model with the best metrics. Simulations show that a recharge of 89 mm was generated from March to December 2019.