Abstract
Abstract Karst landscapes and karst aquifers, which are composed of a variety of soluble rocks such as salt, gypsum, anhydrite, limestone, dolomite and quartzite, are fascinating areas of study. As karst rocks are abundant on the Earth's surface, the fast evolution of karst landscapes and the rapid flow of water through karst aquifers present challenges from a number of different perspectives. This collection of 25 papers deals with different aspects of these challenges, including karst geology, geomorphology and speleogenesis, karst hydrogeology, karst modelling, and karst hazards and management. Together these papers provide a state-of-the-art review of the current challenges and solutions in describing karst from a scientific perspective.
Highlights
The term karst stems from the German derivation of the local name of the region between Italy and Slovenia (Carso in Italian, Kras in Slovene)
The importance of the wider region, namely the Dinaric karst area, is recognized by the use of many local terms that have become accepted in international karst terminology – for example, doline, polje, uvala and ponor (Stevanović & Mijatovic 2005)
Karst landscapes are of great importance because they host remarkable natural resources, including karst aquifers
Summary
Karst aquifers often provide abundant groundwater reserves, which are invaluable resources relevant to human health, food security and industry. The inherent heterogeneity and anisotropy of karst aquifers makes it necessary to develop studies through a wide range of approaches (Doctor et al 2000; Goldscheider & Drew 2007), including: classical hydrological methods involving water balances and analysis of the spring hydrographs; the use of stable and radioactive isotopes, hydrochemical methods and tracer techniques with artificial and/or natural dyes; and designed modelling experiments. These are all required to reconstruct the path followed by groundwater, which is often not accessible through speleological explorations. At present not fully developed, but which is expected to be tackled in the long term, is the exploitation of geothermal resources from karst aquifers (Goldscheider et al 2010)
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