Investigating flood processes in karst catchments by combining concentration-discharge relationship analysis and lateral flow simulation

Abstract

Concentration-Discharge (C-Q) relationship analyses allow better understanding catchment water origin and hydrological process variability across time (from storm-event to pluriannual scale). Though, those approaches mostly include integrative methods that consider catchments as a whole. The aim of this article is to assess the potential of a combined approach to investigate the spatio-temporal variability of flood processes within catchments (across river reaches and seasons), focusing on karst areas. The methodology consists in combining C-Q relationship analysis in nested catchments and simulation of lateral exchanges at the reach scale. For that, we analyze high-frequency records of discharge and electrical conductivity (EC) in karst catchments, in which EC informs on water residence time. Contributions of pre-event water (PEW) and event water (EW) during storm events are investigated through hysteresis loop analysis at each gauging station. Combined with lateral EC simulation at the reach scale, they make it possible to infer runoff processes during storms. A unary karst catchment in a temperate/mountainous climate (Loue River) and a binary catchment in a Mediterranean climate (Cèze River) were selected in France, and their conceptual models of water origin and hydrological process variability were drawn. In the Loue catchment, summer and fall storm events are characterized by contributions of PEW through piston-type flows, whereas decreasing EC values in winter and spring storm events indicate the major contribution of EW through surface runoff and fast infiltration. Within the catchment, EW contribution increases downstream, due to the canyon river morphology grading into open valleys. Regarding the Cèze catchment, contributions of EW are higher, indicating that fast infiltration and surface runoff are the dominant processes, associated with a PEW signature in summer and fall. Within the catchment, PEW contribution is found higher in karstified areas. These results show that flood process seasonality is mainly related to karst aquifer saturation rate, while intra-site variability is linked to karst area extension and river morphology. Results are encouraging to extend this approach to a variety of sites, notably those affected by significant surface water-groundwater interaction and groundwater flooding. Such approach, by providing a discretized information on flood processes, could help refining lumped hydrological models, or facilitate the use of semi-distributed ones.