Conveners: Wolfgang Dreybrodt and Stephan Kempe
Session language: English
Topic:
Karst terrains are important sources of potable groundwater. About one billion people worldwide rely on them. As these resources will be used more intensively in the future water management of karst aquifers and of karst terrains has become an important challenge, which requires a profound understanding on the principles of karst: its genesis, the evolution of phreatic conduits underground and the evolution of the pathways feeding the water to the phreactic zone as well as questions of stability of the karst surface. Dissolution of limestone, gypsum and salt by water and the containing acids, such as H2CO3 or H2SO4 drive the formation of aquifers with extremely heterogeneous distributions of hydraulic conductivities, which are so much different from aquifers in porous materials.
Stalagmites are now used as important proxies of past climate. The inscription of climatic signals from the surface into the calcite precipitated from karst water is governed by karst processes.
To investigate karst processes, a wide spectrum of science is needed: such as physics, chemistry, geology, engineering, hydrology, and also biology, just to name a few.
New ideas and observations in karst-related science is subjects of this session. We want to bring together scientists in Germany but also from abroad to develop new connections between working groups dealing with different aspects of karst, which possibly can be linked. Topics include, among others: Engineering problems associated with karst, numerical modelling of karst evolution underground and on the surface, observation and modelling of karst aquifers, spreading of pollution in karst, hydrochemistry of karst water, kinetics of limestone dissolution by acidic waters, kinetics of calcite precipitation to understand growth of speleothems, isotopic evolution of carbonates in karst water and the isotopic signal in speleothems, or biological processes in karst. Other topics are also welcome.
We invite you to submit contributions and hope we can initiate new links between researches in this exciting scientific field.
