AbstractThe isotopic composition of oxygen (δ18O), and hydrogen (δ2H) are widely used to locate the geographical origin of biological remains or manufactured products. In this paper, we analyze the distributions of δ18O and δ2H in tap waters sampled across France, and in precipitation interpolated with OIPC and modelled with the isotope-enabled ECHAM6-wiso model. Our aim is to provide isoscapes usable in archaeology and forensics and evaluate if modelled data could be surrogates for measured ones.The δ18O and δ2H in the 396 tap waters sampled vary spatially within a range of 10‰ and 77‰ respectively. Their consistent distributions follow rules summarized by the effects of altitude and distance from the coast. Their variations along the year are small. Therefore, the database provides a solid reference for δ18O and δ2H of the water supply system at the regional scale. The areas with the most uncommon oxygen and hydrogen isotopic compositions (Atlantic coast South of Brittany and the highest elevations in the Alps) are the most accurately traceable areas in provenancing studies.The isotopic compositions of modelled precipitation have the same spatial distributions but different absolute values from those of tap waters. Therefore, our results favour the use of statistical isoscapes rather than GCM-based isoscapes in provenancing studies.Supplementary material at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5256034
Supplementary material to "Monitoring snowpack outflow volumes and their isotopic
composition to better understand streamflow generation during
rain-on-snow events"