In many regions, three dimensional characterization of the groundwater regime is limited by coarse well spacing or borehole lithologic logs of low quality. However, regulatory requirements for drinking water or site remediation may require collection of extensive chemical and water quality data from existing wells. Similarly, for wells installed in the distant past, lithologic logs may not be available, but the wells can be sampled for chemical and isotopic constituents. In these situations, a thorough analysis of trends in chemical and isotopic constituents can be a key component in characterizing the regional groundwater system. On a basin or subbasin scale, especially in areas of intensive groundwater management where artificial recharge is important, introduction of an extrinsic tracer can provide a robust picture of groundwater flow. Dissolved gases are particularly good tracers since a large volume of water can be tagged, there are no real or perceived health risks associated with the tracer, and a very large dynamic range allows detection of a small amount of tagged water in well discharge. Recent applications of the application of extrinsic tracers, used in concert with intrinsic chemical and isotopic tracers, demonstrate the power of chemical analyses in interpreting regional subsurface flow regimes
