La edad del agua subterránea: principios y aplicación de trazadores ambientales

Alejandro Basaldua; Emiliano Alcaraz; Daniel Emilio Martínez

doi:10.24215/18527744e002

Autores/as

Alejandro Basaldua Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Argentina https://orcid.org/0009-0002-8553-8362
Emiliano Alcaraz Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Argentina https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7471-1072
Daniel Emilio Martínez Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Argentina https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7640-1754

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24215/18527744e002

Palabras clave:

edad del agua, datación, trazadores ambientales, distribuciones de edades, dinámica de acuíferos

Resumen

Este trabajo revisa el concepto de edad del agua subterránea y su estimación mediante trazadores ambientales, con el objetivo de ofrecer una guía didáctica para hidrogeólogos y profesionales que deseen iniciarse en esta temática. Se presentan los fundamentos teóricos del estudio de edades, las principales terminologías y su relevancia práctica como herramienta complementaria para comprender la dinámica, la recarga, la vulnerabilidad y la renovabilidad de los acuíferos. La edad del agua puede estimarse a partir de la concentración de trazadores ambientales, sustancias presentes en niveles traza cuya medición permite calcular el tiempo transcurrido desde la infiltración. Este método aporta información independiente de los enfoques hidráulicos tradicionales y es especialmente útil para calibrar modelos numéricos de flujo en sistemas heterogéneos. Se describen los principios básicos de aplicación, los tipos de trazadores disponibles, los rangos de edad que cubren y las principales fuentes de error e incertidumbre, con el fin de aclarar conceptos erróneos comunes en su uso. Las causas de discrepancia entre la edad calculada y la edad real del agua incluyen la degradación del trazador, la desgasificación, las fuentes subterráneas, el exceso de aire, la contaminación atmosférica reciente, el retardo respecto al agua y el tránsito por la zona no saturada. Además, se explica cómo las distribuciones de edad dentro de una misma muestra afectan las concentraciones medidas y la interpretación de las edades, un aspecto clave para comprender la dinámica real del sistema. Se concluye que el uso combinado de varios trazadores mejora la precisión y confiabilidad de las estimaciones.

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