A methodology for the assessment of groundwater resource variability in karst catchments with sparse temporal measurements

• Published in: Hydrogeology journal Vol. 29; no. 1; pp. 137 - 157
• Main Authors: Sivelle, V., Jourde, H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.02.2021; Springer Nature B.V; Springer Verlag
• Subjects: Aquatic Pollution; Aquifers; Catchment area; Catchments; Computational fluid dynamics; Correlation analysis; Discharge; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Electrical conductivity; Electrical resistivity; Fluid flow; Geology; Geophysics/Geodesy; Groundwater; Groundwater resources; Hydrodynamics; Hydrogeology; Hydrologic models; Hydrology; Hydrology/Water Resources; Karst; Limestone; Mathematical models; Meteorological data; Methods; Modelling; Monitoring; Outlets; Parameters; Piezometers; Population; Rain; Rainfall runoff; Rainfall-runoff modeling; Rainfall-runoff relationships; Runoff; Sciences of the Universe; Sedimentary basins; Sediments; Spring; Time series; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Water Quality/Water Pollution; Water resources; Sparse temporal measurements; Karst; Lumped-parameter model; France; Time series analysis
• ISSN: 1431-2174; 1435-0157
• DOI: 10.1007/s10040-020-02239-2

In karst catchments where only sparse temporal monitoring is performed, it is generally difficult to correctly assess the overall hydrodynamics of the basin. However, sparse temporal spring-discharge data may contain information of major importance for the characterization of such catchments, especially when sparse spring-discharge data over a long period are available and combined with higher frequency discharge and/or piezometric-level data. This paper proposes a methodology for the characterization and hydrodynamic modeling of karst catchments by coupling sparse temporal data of discharge at a karstic spring over a 30-year measurement period, with higher frequency (i.e. hourly) data of hydrodynamic (piezometry, discharge), physicochemical (temperature, electrical conductivity) and meteorological data over a short monitoring period of 21 months. The study area is the Oeillal spring catchment, one of the main outlets of the Fontfroide-Montredon limestone aquifer located at the border of the Narbonne-Sigean sedimentary basin, southern France. The present study focuses on the use of numerical tools such as time-series analysis (recession analysis, auto-correlation and cross-correlation analysis) coupled with a lumped-parameter modeling approach, to assess the hydrodynamic behaviour of the karst system. The main results of the study highlight the necessity to couple the results from lumped-parameter rainfall-runoff modeling with results from high-resolution time-series analysis to evaluate the physical significance of the model, since classical numerical performance criteria such as the Nash-Sutcliff efficiency, Kling-Gupta efficiency and balance error, can be poorly estimated when only subsampled time series exist for model calibration.