1. Short title of the project IGCP513 － Karst Aquifers and Water Resources
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Chris Groves , Western Kentucky University, USA Yuan Daoxian , Institute of Karst Geology, China Bartolome Andreo-Navarro , Universidad de Malaga, Spain Heather Viles , Oxford University, England |
Chris Groves |
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The importance and benefit of this project came from the a increased understanding that resulted from Project research and communication about the broad expanse of karst the world, its rich but unevenly distributed natural resources, high populations, and fragile environments. Many informative geological records have accumulated and been interpreted from karst areas, providing a new tool for the study of global environmental change. Proposed IGCP Project Global Study of Karst Aquifers and Water Resources
The guiding principle of the International Geological Correlation Program— Geoscience in the Service of Society— lies at the heart of this proposed work. The major ideas are outlined below, but perhaps most significant among them is the fact that an estimated one-fourth of the world's population obtains drinking water from karst aquifers. This is combined with the fact that karst systems often offer serious challenges to water supply, and are typically easily contaminated. The proposed project aims to promote research, communication, and widespread dissemination of information (stressing peer-reviewed journals) leading to a better understanding of karst aquifers and water resources, and using this information, where possible, in the alleviation of human suffering and ecological damage associated with the challenges presented by human and ecological interactions with karst systems. Beginning at the 2004 International Geological Congress in Florence, Italy and the 2004 International Transdisciplinary Conference on Sustainable Karst Development in Hanoi, Vietnam, this project is proposed as the successor to Project 448: World Correlation of Karst Geology and Relevant Ecosystems, approved by the IGCP Scientific Board in 2000, with a final report in 2004. An irony is that many of the world's significant karst areas occur in poorly developed economic regions, in part due to the physical challenges that these landscapes often present with regard to water supply, agriculture, and urban development. Thus, resources are often limited to address these significant problems. The main purpose of the proposed project is to encourage international cooperation to increase understanding of karst water resources with regard to both ecological and human health concerns, and to promote the sharing of ideas, experiences and resources in developing solutions to karst water resource challenges. 1) Relation of hydrology to the function and health of karst ecosystems; Study of the occurrence, distribution, and circulation of water into, over, and through karst landscape/aquifer systems provides the most fundamental common element among the various aspects of cave and karst science. Ecosystems in karst regions are influenced by the distribution of water in the surface and subsurface, in turn resulting from the details of local hydrogeology and geomorphology. In many cave environments, for example, aquatic environments can support the most well developed ecosystems and richest diversity of organisms, and surface karst ecosystems are commonly influenced by scarcity of water in that environment. 2) Water supply in karst regions; The topic of water supply in karst regions has taken on very timely significance with the recognition (Ford and Williams, 1989) that as many as 25% of the world's population obtains drinking water supplies from vulnerable karst aquifers. At the same time, karst areas often offer difficult challenges in water supply both with the quantity and quality of water sources. In many cases karst waters are not easily accessible from the surface landscape. Some areas present additional challenges due to less accessible deep-seated water sources. Karst waters are also in many cases extremely vulnerable to contamination from urban, agricultural, and other types of land uses that introduce contaminants to the subsurface that travel through karst aquifers with little attenuation to pollute water sources. 3) Water-related environmental problems in karst regions; In addition to problems with the supply of water, there are other very significant environmental problems that occur in karst regions associated with the movement of water through these systems. These include sinkhole flooding, land subsidence, and sinkhole collapse than can disrupt urban development and create not only severe economic problems, but in some cases have led to loss of life. There are some karst regions where a combination of natural conditions and human events has created very severe environmental problems. Of the 80 million people who live in the karst region that spreads throughout eight provinces of southwest China, for example, eight million live below the poverty level, and in many areas these problems have been made worse by rock desertification resulting from deforestation of the region's peak cluster karst. 4) Aqueous geochemistry of karst aquifer/landscape systems. The nature of karst systems, and each of the environmental issues that are characteristic of them, are associated with the dissolution of soluble bedrock, primarily limestone, in the carbonic acid solutions of natural waters. Important questions are yet to be fully answered with regard to the behavior, descriptions, and rates of these processes. These include both fundamental and applied questions that address the quantitative, thermodynamics and kinetics-based relationships that describe the processes that create karst landscapes in the first place, as well as, for example, applied problems addressing how water/rock interactions in carbonate rock regions are impacting the global carbon cycle. We also include study of the speleogenesis of deep-seated karst systems. |
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