Snowmelt as a determinant factor in the hydrogeological behaviour of high mountain karst aquifers: The Garcés karst system, Central Pyrenees (Spain)

Jódar, Jorge; González-Ramón, Antonio; Martos-Rosillo, Sergio; Heredia, Javier; Herrera, Christian; Urrutia, Javier; Caballero, Yvan; Zabaleta, Ane; Antigüedad, Iñaki; Custódio, Emílio; Lambán, L.J.

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141363

Cited by 20 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…View of the image from SE to NW, taken from Google Earth (08/09/2017). most important recharge mechanism for the aquifer in terms of annual recharge volumes (Jódar et al, 2020). During this period, the phreatic level does not experience large variations and groundwater flow is diffuse.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Tampa, FL (USA) September 2020 aquifer recharge spatially while maintaining moderate drainage rates over time. Therefore, the joint effect of the snowmelt dynamics and the epiphreatic structure, which is controlled by the connected porosity and small joints and fractures (Jódar et al, 2020), prevent the generation of the sudden and rapid recharge pulsations in the system, which are closely related with the looping cave structure generation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The infiltrated water tries always to flow downwards through the vadose conduit network until reaching the saturated zone. In such karst systems, the dynamics of accumulation and melting of snow may control the aquifer system recharge (Meeks et al, 2017;Thornton et al, 2019;Jódar et al, 2020), and it might even affect the pattern of the karst drainage network, but this point is still poorly understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hydrometeorological factors determining the development of water table cave patterns in high alpine zones. The Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park, NE Spain

González-Ramón¹,

Jódar²,

Samsó³

et al. 2020

IJS

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This study is focussed on the geomorphological characterization and the processes driving the evolution of the highest karst system in Western Europe, which is located in the Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park (PNOMP), in the central-southern Pyrenees. The karst system does not seem to have a well-developed epikarst. The studied area shows a karst network of polygenic branchwork type in the vadose zone. Additionally, the explored karst conduits in the epiphreatic zone show a water table cave pattern that is different to the looping one, which is the expected cave pattern development for a karst located in a mountain zone where a high irregular recharge is expected. We have designed a conceptual recharge model through a multidisciplinary approach, which has included the making of a new detailed geological and hydrogeological map of the study area, morphometric analysis of cavities, tests with fluorescent dye tracers and hydrometeorological monitoring of the karst system associated with the Garcés Spring. This spring, together with the Font Blanca Spring, constitutes the main water discharge point of the hydrogeological system. The conceptual recharge model explains how the observed unexpected cave pattern has developed in this karst.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hydrometeorological factors determining the development of water table cave patterns in high alpine zones. The Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park, NE Spain

González-Ramón¹,

Jódar²,

Samsó³

et al. 2020

IJS

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“…Data demanding energy balance methods (Colaizzi et al 2012;Penman 1948) or simple temperature-based parametrizations (Oudin et al 2005;Thornthwaite 1948) provide evapotranspiration time series. Snow processes, which were recently shown to play a major role for groundwater recharge in pre-alpine and alpine areas (Jódar et al 2020;Lucianetti et al 2020), can be modeled using energy balance methods (Herrero et al 2009;Marks et al 1999) or simpler degree-day-factor methods (Girons Lopez et al 2020;Martinec 1960). Reliable time series of interception, evapotranspiration and snowmelt are a prerequisite for a proper description of the water balance for distributed, semidistributed and conceptual models.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unraveling the time-dependent relevance of input model uncertainties for a lumped hydrologic model of a pre-alpine karst system

2021

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Uncertainties in hydrologic model outputs can arise for many reasons such as structural, parametric and input uncertainty. Identification of the sources of uncertainties and the quantification of their impacts on model results are important to appropriately reproduce hydrodynamic processes in karst aquifers and to support decision-making. The present study investigates the time-dependent relevance of model input uncertainties, defined as the conceptual uncertainties affecting the representation and parameterization of processes relevant for groundwater recharge, i.e. interception, evapotranspiration and snow dynamic, on the lumped karst model LuKARS. A total of nine different models are applied, three to compute interception (DVWK, Gash and Liu), three to compute evapotranspiration (Thornthwaite, Hamon and Oudin) and three to compute snow processes (Martinec, Girons Lopez and Magnusson). All the input model combinations are tested for the case study of the Kerschbaum spring in Austria. The model parameters are kept constant for all combinations. While parametric uncertainties computed for the same model in previous studies do not show pronounced temporal variations, the results of the present work show that input uncertainties are seasonally varying. Moreover, the input uncertainties of evapotranspiration and snowmelt are higher than the interception uncertainties. The results show that the importance of a specific process for groundwater recharge can be estimated from the respective input uncertainties. These findings have practical implications as they can guide researchers to obtain relevant field data to improve the representation of different processes in lumped parameter models and to support model calibration.

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“…Such hydrochemical processes along with the heterogeneity in the inner karst structure make characterizing the behavior of the associated aquifer system difficult. To this end, it is convenient to adopt a multidisciplinary approach [12], considering the hydrodynamic behavior and analyzing the physico-chemical and isotopic characteristics of groundwater (GW) throughout the aquifer [7,[13][14][15][16], using both environmental and chemical tracers [17][18][19], applying data analysis techniques [20][21][22], conducting geophysical prospection [23], and/or applying hydrodynamic and hydrogeochemical and isotopic modeling tools [24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of Natural and Anthropogenic Geochemical Processes Determining the Groundwater Quality in Port del Comte High Mountain Karst Aquifer (SE, Pyrenees)

Herms

Jódar

Soler

et al. 2021

Water

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The Port del Comte Massif (SE, Pyrenees) contains one of the most important vulnerable and strategic karst aquifers for supplying freshwater to the city of Barcelona (Spain). It is a fragile system, whose possible environmental impact is highly conditioned by land use. To improve the hydrogeological knowledge of the system, between September 2013 and October 2015, a detailed fieldwork was carried out for the revision of the geological model, the inventory of water points, and the in situ physico-chemical characterization on major elements and isotopes of up to a total of 43 springs, as well as precipitation water. This paper focuses on the characterization of the geochemical processes that allow explanation of the observed chemical variability of groundwater drained by the pristine aquifer system to determine the origin of salinity. The results show that the main process is the dissolution of calcite and dolomite, followed by gypsum and halite, and a minor cation exchange-like process. Sulfur and oxygen isotopes from dissolved sulfate in the studied springs point out a geogenic origin related to the dissolution of gypsum from Triassic and Tertiary materials, and that the contribution from anthropogenic sources, like fertilizers, is lower. Nitrate in groundwater is not an important issue, with a few localized cases related with agricultural activities. The multidisciplinary approach has allowed the development of a consistent hydrogeological conceptual model of the functioning of the aquifer system, which can be replicated in other places to understand the geogenic character of the hydrogeochemistry.

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Snowmelt as a determinant factor in the hydrogeological behaviour of high mountain karst aquifers: The Garcés karst system, Central Pyrenees (Spain)

Cited by 20 publications

References 42 publications

Hydrometeorological factors determining the development of water table cave patterns in high alpine zones. The Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park, NE Spain

Hydrometeorological factors determining the development of water table cave patterns in high alpine zones. The Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park, NE Spain

Unraveling the time-dependent relevance of input model uncertainties for a lumped hydrologic model of a pre-alpine karst system

Identification of Natural and Anthropogenic Geochemical Processes Determining the Groundwater Quality in Port del Comte High Mountain Karst Aquifer (SE, Pyrenees)

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