Quantifying temporal variability and spatial heterogeneity in rainfall recharge thresholds in a montane karst environment

Relationship of seasonal variations in drip water δ13CDIC, δ18O and trace elements with surface and physical cave conditions of La Vallina Cave, NW Spain

“…Hence, no statistically significant relationship between drip rate and rainfall (e.g. antecedent 7-day cumulative rainfall amount) is found as suggested by other studies (Baker et al, 2020;Baker et al, 2021). Nevertheless, comparison of Fig.…”

“…3e). Recently published hydrological models from semi-arid caves suggest a recharge threshold has to be overcome (saturated soil and epikarst) to contribute to the deeper water reservoir feeding the cave drip water (Markowska et al, 2016;Baker et al, 2021). Hence, when (P-PET) is negative in summer, any rain is likely evaporated and does not recharge the water reservoir.…”

“…Continuous hydrographs recording drip rates or tracer experiments would be necessary to determine the response time of rain events and to define thresholds of rainfall amount affecting drip sites individually (Markowska et al, 2016). The proposed 7-day antecedent cumulative rainfall method (Baker et al, 2020;Baker et al, 2021) does not yield any better relationship between recharge and drip rate. Nonlinear relationship between rain and drip rate can result from passing the precipitation vs. evapotranspiration threshold (Fairchild and Baker, 2012) or when water storage reservoirs overflow (Bradley et al, 2010).…”

Differentiation characteristics of karst vegetation resilience and its response to climate and ecological restoration projects

“…Because of the differences in soil and water assemblage, light and heat conditions, and human activities, the vegetation resilience in south China karst exhibited obvious differentiation characteristics (Baker et al, 2021; Chen et al, 2018). Under the fragile ecological background conditions and unreasonable human activities—such as deforestation and urban expansion—the issue of rocky desertification in karst regions has become prominent, and the ecological environment has been seriously damaged; therefore, its vegetation resilience is smaller than that in the non‐karst region in the pre‐2002 (Boers et al, 2017; Boulton et al, 2022; Guo et al, 2019).…”

A Decade of Cave Drip Hydrographs Shows Spatial and Temporal Variability in Epikarst Storage and Recharge to Appalachian Karst Systems

“…Geochemical analysis of spring water has been used to infer properties of recharge in karst systems, including the function of the epikarst for storing recharge [14][15][16] and tracking the timing and components of recharge for karst aquifers [6,17]. Rainfall-recharge methods have been applied to quantify precipitation thresholds that initiate cave drips in Australia [18,19] and Virginia, USA [7], among other locations. Numerical models can be used to quantify the flux of water into and out of the conduit system of the karst aquifer [20,21] and also to differentiate recharge ages using chemical tracers [22].…”