Groundwater is an increasingly important resource to human populations around the world, and the study and protection of groundwater is an essential part of hydrogeology - the subset of hydrology that concentrates on the subsurface. Environmental isotopes, naturally occurring nuclides in water and solutes, have become fundamental tools for tracing

Water-rock interactions play an important role in nearly all physical and chemical processes operating on the Earth's surface and subsurface. This work contains the proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Water-Rock Interaction (WRI-8), held in Russia in 1995.

The interaction of the lithosphere and hydrosphere sets the boundary conditions for life, as water and the nutrients extracted from rocks are essential to all known life-forms. Water-rock interaction also affects the fate and transport of pollutants, mediates the long-term cycling of fluids and metals in the earth's crust, impacts the migration and