Groundwater management is a key issue for sustainable human development, especially in semi-arid and arid regions. The increasing demand for water and the limited availability of surface water resources has led to the rapid development of groundwater for water supply, irrigation and industrial uses. For rational planning, an adequate understanding of the aquifer properties is a pre-requisite to establishing sound development strategies.

The Agency has embarked on an effort to compile and disseminate isotope data from aquifers and rivers worldwide. These data are...aimed at assisting decision-makers in adopting better practices for groundwater management.

The development of a dual-inlet gas-source mass spectrometer in the 1950s heralded an explosive growth in the use of isotopes in hydrology and geology. New technological developments...hold a great promise for revolutionizing the use of isotopes in water resources management. A portable instrument based on a laser technique has become available for use.... This relatively inexpensive, low-skill and low-cost instrument...may be operated at a minimal operational cost...and would overcome the present barrier to a wider use of isotopes in hydrology....The use of the laser isotope machine could result in a large number of isotope measurements worldwide, which would help...address some key hydrogeological challenges...

There is continuing progress in using nuclear energy to desalinate seawater, driven by the expanding global demand for fresh water and by developments in small and medium sized reactors....In the field of nuclear desalination, Japan has accumulated over 143 reactor-years of experience and Kazakhstan accumulated 26 reactor-years before shutting down the Aktau fast reactor in 1999.

India is proceeding with the full commissioning of the nuclear desalination demonstration plant at Kalpakkam, at which desalination using reverse osmosis has been in operation for several years and desalination using the multi-stage flash process is scheduled to start in 2006 ....In 2005, the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute applied for a construction permit for a one-fifth scale, 65 MW prototype of a System-Integrated Modular Advanced Reactor with a desalination unit....In China, a test system is being set up in the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology for validating the thermal-hydraulic parameters of a multi-effect distillation process....

The investigations on the applicability of nuclear techniques for the detection of explosives including landmines have shown that targets smaller than 100 gm cannot be detected with adequate reliability...and that the neutron backscatter based technique is of utility for arid zones alone ....It has been difficult to identify any single nuclear technique as being superior or as the first line of inspection....For the latter, one also requires some non-nuclear techniques. Accordingly, further research is being pursued to develop application of a combination of techniques...by a number of groups from both developed and developing countries under the Agency’s coordination.

Oceanic circulation is one of the key processes that control our climate. The ability to use radionuclides as tracers for oceanic processes is...driven by recent advances in clean sampling and analytical techniques....

The oceans contain 50 times the quantity of carbon dioxide found in the atmosphere and each year draw down 30-40 per cent of the CO2 generated from the burning of fossil fuels by humans. The oceans thus play a pivotal role in the global carbon mass balance. Carbon isotopes have enabled geochemists to track global CO2 cycles and such techniques will be valuable in assessing future mitigation options. Isotope chemists have succeeded in...merging these carbon isotope techniques into gas chromatography-isotope ratio mass spectrometry...enabling the identification of many more sources...of organic ...pollutants...