Due to climate change and human activities over the last fifty years, the spring flow volume of karst groundwater has sharply diminished in China. Climate change is one of the critical factors that initiates a series of karst hydrogeologic and water ecological environmental problems, because the precipitation shows a decreasing trend while the temperature shows an increasing trend. The Jinci Sp...

Karst hills, that is, jagged topography created by dissolution of limestone and other soluble rocks, are distributed extensively in tropical forest regions, including southern parts of China. They are characterized by a sharp mosaic of water and nutrient availability, from exposed hilltops with poor soil development to valleys with occasional flooding, to which trees show species-specific distr...

There are about 200 salt plugs in the southern part of the Zagros Mountain Ranges and the Persian Gulf in Iran (Kent, 1970). The salt comes from the Hormuz salt Formation at the base of the Phanerozoic zone. It moves upward due to the buoyancy, the latteral pressure resulting from the opening of the Red Sea to the southwest, and the weight of several thousand meters of overlying sediments. It m...

The Zafarraya polje undergoes periodical flooding, of which the last episode (1996–1997) was analysed in detail on this paper. On the basis of the retention curves of the two lakes that formed in the northwestern and southwestern sectors, we calculated the total infiltration capacity of the polje to have a maximum value of 3–3.5 m/s and so we infer that when the flow of the Arroyo de la Madre e...

Unchanging physicochemical conditions and nutrient sources over long periods of time in cave and karst subsurface habitats, particularly aquifers, can support stable ecosystems, termed autochthonous microbial endokarst communities (AMEC). AMEC existence is unknown for other karst settings, such as epigenic cave streams. Conceptually, AMEC should not form in streams due to faster turnover rates ...

Water supply is a major problem in the Adriatic islands, especially during the summer tourism season, and represents a limiting factor to the islands' further economic development. Much attention has been given to water supply solutions, primarily in terms of attempting to use the existing island water. Unfortunately, few islands have favourable hydrological conditions to accumulate significant...

The article “Characteristics of Point Recharge in Karst Aquifers, Water 6: 2782–2807” by N. Somaratne evaluates various recharge estimation techniques applied to four limestone aquifers in South Australia. Somaratne [1] concludes that methods based on watertable fluctuations, groundwater modelling and water budgets are independent of recharge processes, and are therefore superior to the chlorid...

The river Gacka springs catchment area is located in the Dinaric karst, which is globally known as the locus typicus, or classical Karst. It is composed of four major and several minor karst springs of different discharge rates. The river Gacka springs are characterised by great discharge and exceptional quality, so the catchment area of the river is indicated in the Water Management Strategy (...

Karst landscapes—regions characterized by sinkholes, caves, springs, underground rivers, and slowly dissolving bedrock— constitute about 25% of the world’s land surface (1). Although some karst landscapes are attractive and of aesthetic value, most of them are recognized as fragile zones unsuitable as human habitats— mainly due to extremely poor soil cover, or a complete lack of soil, and rapid...