engleski

Multidisciplinary investigations of karst

Karst is a particular type of landscape created by the dissolving action of water on carbonate bedrock. Karst landforms include sinkholes, caves and extensive groundwater systems that are valuable freshwater resources. These terrains are extremely vulnerable to contamination and are highly sensitive to anthropogenic activities. The contaminant easily enters the karst aquifer and, usually without effective filtration and self- purification processes, rapidly spreads through the complex network of fractures and conduits. Protection, as well as proper and balanced management of karst water resources, may only be assured if it is founded on a thorough understanding of the karst phenomena gained through interdisciplinary research. This lecture presents the results of the recent studies of the karst that included various scientific disciplines. Special emphasis will be on the Croatian karst and application of isotopic methods that complement conventional geophysical and hydrogeology methods. Some of the possible applications of stable isotopes of water in karst studies are for exploring recharge processes and reservoir mixing, determining residence times and storage in non-conduit parts of karst systems, estimating mean recharge area elevations, prediction of contaminants movement, etc. Direct observation and sampling in caves and usage of stable isotopes made possible the grey-box modeling approach to karst systems. Contrary to conventional black-box modeling, the new approach enables gaining more detailed information about system’s dimensions, qualitative characteristics of its boundaries, groundwater flow paths, as well as linkages, stores, capacities, and throughput volumes. The use of isotopic methods in the research of karst is just one of the examples of incorporating new experimental methods into karst exploration. In the future, we expect inclusion of even newer methods and disciplines into these highly demanding investigations.

karst, multidisciplinary, physics, stable isotopes

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