Estimation of deep infiltration in unsaturated limestone environments using cave lidar and drip count data

Abstract. Limestone aeolianites constitute karstic aquifers covering much of the western and southern Australian coastal fringe. They are a key groundwater resource for a range of industries such as winery and tourism, and provide important ecosystem services such as habitat for stygofauna. Moreover, recharge estimation is important for understanding the water cycle, for contaminant transport, for water management, and for stalagmite-based paleoclimate reconstructions. Caves offer a natural inception point to observe both the long-term groundwater recharge and the preferential movement of water through the unsaturated zone of such limestone. With the availability of automated drip rate logging systems and remote sensing techniques, it is now possible to deploy the combination of these methods for larger-scale studies of infiltration processes within a cave. In this study, we utilize a spatial survey of automated cave drip monitoring in two large chambers of Golgotha Cave, south-western Western Australia (SWWA), with the aim of better understanding infiltration water movement and the relationship between infiltration, stalactite morphology, and unsaturated zone recharge. By applying morphological analysis of ceiling features from Terrestrial LiDAR (T-LiDAR) data, coupled with drip time series and climate data from 2012 to 2014, we demonstrate the nature of the relationships between infiltration through fractures in the limestone and unsaturated zone recharge. Similarities between drip rate time series are interpreted in terms of flow patterns, cave chamber morphology, and lithology. Moreover, we develop a new technique to estimate recharge in large-scale caves, engaging flow classification to determine the cave ceiling area covered by each flow category and drip data for the entire observation period, to calculate the total volume of cave discharge. This new technique can be applied to other cave sites to identify highly focussed areas of recharge and can help to better estimate the total recharge volume.

[1]  T. Atkinson.  Diffuse flow and conduit flow in limestone terrain in the Mendip Hills, Somerset (Great Britain) , 1977 .

[2]  R. Koons,et al.  Neutron activation analysis of standard soils , 1978 .

[3]  P. Williams.  The role of the subcutaneous zone in karst hydrology , 1983 .

[4]  I. Carmi,et al.  Timing the transport of water through the upper vadose zone in a Karstic system above a cave in Israel , 1986 .

[5]  Marios Sophocleous,et al.  Combining the soilwater balance and water-level fluctuation methods to estimate natural groundwater recharge: Practical aspects , 1991 .

[6]  E. Raeisi,et al.  HYDROCHEMOGRAPHS OF BERGHAN KARST SPRING AS INDICATORS OF AQUIFER CHARACTERISTICS , 1997 .

[7]  D. Genty,et al.  Drip flow variations under a stalactite of the Père Noël cave (Belgium). Evidence of seasonal variations and air pressure constraints , 1998 .

[8]  A. Baker,et al.  Hydrological characterisation of stalagmite dripwaters at Grotte de Villars, Dordogne, by the analysis of inorganic species and luminescent organic matter , 2000 .

[9]  Mikko Inkinen,et al.  A segmentation-based method to retrieve stem volume estimates from 3-D tree height models produced by laser scanners , 2001, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[10]  William B. White,et al.  Karst hydrology: recent developments and open questions , 2002 .

[11]  I. Fairchild,et al.  Soil and karst aquifer hydrological controls on the geochemical evolution of speleothem-forming drip waters, Crag Cave, southwest Ireland , 2003 .

[12]  C. Brunsdon,et al.  Non-linearities in drip water hydrology: an example from Stump Cross Caverns, Yorkshire , 2003 .

[13]  B. Andreo,et al.  Contribution of stable isotopes to the understanding of the unsaturated zone of a carbonate aquifer (Nerja Cave, southern Spain) , 2006 .

[14]  Jamie K. Pringle,et al.  Virtual outcrop models of petroleum reservoir analogues: a review of the current state-of-the-art , 2006 .

[15]  D. Ford,et al.  Karst Hydrogeology and Geomorphology , 2007 .

[16]  Y. Enzel,et al.  Direct measurements of floodwater infiltration into shallow alluvial aquifers , 2007 .

[17]  R. Drysdale,et al.  Hydrology of cave drip waters at varying bedrock depths from a karst system in southeastern Australia , 2007 .

[18]  Martin Olazar,et al.  Predicting travel times and transport characterization in karst conduits by analyzing tracer-breakthrough curves , 2007 .

[19]  D. Ford,et al.  Karst Hydrogeology and Geomorphology: Ford/Karst Hydrogeology and Geomorphology , 2007 .

[20]  Nico Goldscheider,et al.  Methods in karst hydrogeology , 2007 .

[21]  Stefan Geyer,et al.  Water percolation through the deep vadose zone and groundwater recharge: Preliminary results based on a new vadose zone monitoring system , 2007 .

[22]  M. Fischer,et al.  Calibrating climate-δ18O regression models for the interpretation of high-resolution speleothem δ18O time series , 2008 .

[23]  B. Andreo,et al.  Some applications of geochemical and isotopic techniques to hydrogeology of the caves after research in two sites (Nerja Cave-S Spain, and Fourbanne system-French Jura) , 2008 .

[24]  D. Mattey,et al.  Controls on water drop volume at speleothem drip sites: An experimental study , 2008 .

[25]  V. Haverd,et al.  CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research Component: Final Report for Phase 3 , 2008 .

[26]  Bryson C. Bates,et al.  Key findings from the Indian Ocean Climate Initiative and their impact on policy development in Australia , 2008 .

[27]  M. Inbar,et al.  Hydrologic classification of cave drips in a Mediterranean climate, based on hydrograph separation and flow mechanisms , 2008 .

[28]  David Hodgetts,et al.  Structural geology and 4D evolution of a half-graben: New digital outcrop modelling techniques applied to the Nukhul half-graben, Suez rift, Egypt , 2009 .

[29]  John A. Howell,et al.  Overlapping faults and their effect on fluid flow in different reservoir types: A LIDAR-based outcrop modeling and flow simulation study , 2009 .

[30]  David Hodgetts,et al.  A new approach for outcrop characterization and geostatistical analysis of a low-sinuosity fluvial-dominated succession using digital outcrop models: Upper Triassic Oukaimeden Sandstone Formation, central High Atlas, Morocco , 2009 .

[31]  S. Worthington,et al.  Hydrogeology of Carbonate Aquifers: A Short History , 2009, Ground water.

[32]  Y. Travi,et al.  Transit Time Environmental Tracing from Dissolved Organic Matter Fluorescence Properties in Karstic Aquifers. Application to Different Flows of Fontaine de Vaucluse Experimental Basin (SE France) , 2010 .

[33]  M. Inbar,et al.  Infiltration processes and flow rates in developed karst vadose zone using tracers in cave drips , 2010 .

[34]  M. Olazar,et al.  Solute transport modelling in karst conduits with slow zones during different hydrologic conditions. , 2010 .

[35]  V. Rodriguez-Galiano,et al.  Morphometric analysis of three-dimensional networks of karst conduits , 2011 .

[36]  H. Gvirtzman,et al.  Integrated cave drip monitoring for epikarst recharge estimation in a dry Mediterranean area, Sif Cave, Israel , 2011 .

[37]  G. Mariéthoz,et al.  Spatially dense drip hydrological monitoring and infiltration behaviour at the Wellington Caves, South East Australia , 2012 .

[38]  S. Massuel,et al.  Geohydrology of the Tamala Limestone Formation in thePerth Region: Origin and role of secondary porosity , 2012 .

[39]  Michael Bosse,et al.  Zebedee: Design of a Spring-Mounted 3-D Range Sensor with Application to Mobile Mapping , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[40]  Reza Ghasemizadeh,et al.  Review: Groundwater flow and transport modeling of karst aquifers, with particular reference to the North Coast Limestone aquifer system of Puerto Rico , 2012, Hydrogeology Journal.

[41]  M. Gagan,et al.  An isotopic and modelling study of flow paths and storage in Quaternary calcarenite, SW Australia: implications for speleothem paleoclimate records , 2013 .

[42]  Trevor Faulkner.  Speleothem Science: From Process to Past Environments , 2013 .

[43]  B. Scanlon.  Evaluation of Methods of Estimating Recharge in Semiarid and Arid Regions in the Southwestern U.S. , 2013 .

[44]  Michael Bosse,et al.  Efficient Large‐scale Three‐dimensional Mobile Mapping for Underground Mines , 2014, J. Field Robotics.

[45]  M. Petrič,et al.  Solute transport processes in a karst vadose zone characterized by long-term tracer tests (the cave system of Postojnska Jama, Slovenia) , 2014 .

[46]  M. Cuthbert,et al.  Drip water isotopes in semi-arid karst: Implications for speleothem paleoclimatology , 2014 .

[47]  M. Bosse,et al.  THREE-DIMENSIONAL MOBILE MAPPING OF CAVES , 2014 .

[48]  Martin S. Andersen,et al.  Unsaturated zone hydrology and cave drip discharge water response: Implications for speleothem paleoclimate record variability , 2015 .

[49]  Grégoire Mariethoz,et al.  Terrestrial LiDAR Survey and Morphological Analysis to Identify Infiltration Properties in the Tamala Limestone, Western Australia , 2015, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing.

[50]  A. Baker,et al.  Impacts of cave air ventilation and in-cave prior calcite precipitation on Golgotha Cave dripwater chemistry, southwest Australia , 2015 .

[51]  Michael Bosse,et al.  Continuous‐Time Three‐Dimensional Mapping for Micro Aerial Vehicles with a Passively Actuated Rotating Laser Scanner , 2016, J. Field Robotics.