Michel Bakalowicz

Université de Montpellier | UM1 · Laboratoire HydroSciences Montpellier

This paper is intended to be a reminder of a series of scientific works whose origin is largely attributable to G. de Marsily, without attempting to make an exhaustive overview of submarine springs and coastal karst aquifers. The main results show that coastal karst aquifers with their submarine outlets and the possibility of natural seawater intru...

Since the first ideas born more than 3,000 years ago in China or around the Mediterranean basin, karstic hydrogeology has been enriched by the developments of sciences. The necessary multidisciplinarity to address the singularity of karstic aquifers gives it a special place within geosciences and explains the origin of the diversity of the communit...

The long-term trends and seasonal patterns of stream water chemical composition in a small remote forested karst catchment, were investigated from 1978 to 2018. Calcium, magnesium, and bicarbonates, the dominant ions, increased over the period together with temperature, while sulfates decreased. Carbonate and sulfate mineral dissolution was the mai...

Karst regions offer a variety of natural resources such as freshwater and biodiversity, and many cultural resources. The World Karst Aquifer Map (WOKAM) is the first detailed and complete global geodatabase concerning the distribution of karstifiable rocks (carbonates and evaporites) representing potential karst aquifers. This study presents a stat...

The carbonate dissolution plays a major role in the atmospheric CO2 sink and in the riverine transfer of dissolved inorganic carbon from the atmosphere to the critical zone and to the oceans. In this context, the Baget watershed (13.25 km2, altitude 950 m), essentially forested and weakly exposed to local anthropogenic pollution, drains a karst are...

The long-term change in surface water chemistry over time in remote areas is usually related to global change, including several processes such as global warming and acid atmospheric pollution. These cumulative factors limit the quantitative interpretation of the global warming effect on surface water acidification in relation to the atmospheric CO...

The carbonate dissolution plays a major role in the atmospheric CO2 sink and in the riverine transfer of dissolved inorganic carbon from the atmosphere to the soils/rocks and to the oceans. The Baget watershed (13.25 km2, altitude 950 m) which drains a karstic area in the Pyrenees Mountains has been monitored since more than 40 years for better und...

Coastal karst aquifers are common in the Mediterranean basin. With their significant potential storage capacity, they are an attractive groundwater resource in areas where the water demand is the most important. They discharge either at the coastal zone or directly into the sea at karst submarine springs (KSMS). Decision makers take an interest in...

Since several decades, atmospheric pollution has an impact on natural resources, particularly, soils, freshwaters and aquatic ecosystems. The Baget experimental catchment draining a karstic area of 13 km2 in the Pyrenees, is ”quasi pristine” or very weakly polluted. Thus, it is very sensitive to global changes and a good candidate to better underst...

Karst aquifers contribute substantially to freshwater supplies in many regions of the world, but are vulnerable to contamination and difficult to manage because of their unique hydrogeological characteristics. Many karst systems are hydraulically connected over wide areas and require transboundary exploration, protection and management. In order to...

Les suivis hebdomadaires réalisés depuis 1974 sur la composition chimique des eaux du ruisseau (anions et cations majeurs) permettent aujourd’hui d’appréhender l’évolution à long terme de la dissolution des carbonates, ainsi que l’impact du changement de la qualité des dépôts atmosphériques sur cette dissolution.

In the Sahel region, temporary rivers and ponds constitute green spaces of welfare where sustainable de- velopment requires parsimonious management of water resources. The Komadugu Yobe valley in Eastern Niger is presented here as an example case of recent agricultural development based on irrigated pepper cropping. Piezo- metric maps indicate ther...

Karst landforms were first described and studied in Mediterranean regions, where these common landforms display their main hydrological characteristics. For this reason, Mediterranean karst is often considered to be the common reference. However, when we examine the general settings of Mediterranean karst and their groundwater resources more carefu...

For many Mediterranean countries, karst aquifers offer an essential water resource. Their characteristics are mentioned as well as the specificity of Mediterranean karsts, determined by a particular climate and over all a recent complex geological history. The Messinian Crisis of Salinity (MCS), a major event which occurred 5.3 My ago, allowed the...

Epikarst forms the interface zone between the infiltration zone and soil and plant cover. It is the superficial part of karst landscapes characterized by a fracturing more developed than in the underlying infiltration zone, because of the action of rock constraints, climate, and plants. The processes at the origin of epikarst are described, as well...

Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) is an emerging sustainable technique that has already generated successful results and is expected to solve many water resource problems, especially in semi-arid and arid zones. It is of great interest for karst aquifers that currently supply 20–25% of the world’s potable water, particularly in Mediterranean countries...

Karst aquifers are especially difficult to exploit, manage, and protect because of the extreme variability of their hydraulic properties which are almost impossible to determine at a local scale. Moreover, their functioning may be influenced by non-linearities and threshold effects. Considering long-term aquifer exploitation, karst system complexit...

Tirés à part : M. Bakalowicz Résumé Les aquifères karstiques sont, pour beaucoup de pays méditerranéens, une res-source en eau essentielle, sinon même unique. Leurs caractéristiques rappelées succinctement, ainsi que celles des spécificités du karst méditerranéen, sont détermi-nées par un climat particulier et, surtout, une histoire géologique réce...

MEDFRIEND is one of the eight FRIEND programs of the UNESCO International Hydrological Program. Its goal is to enhance research collaboration between neighbouring countries in hydrology and related sciences, within several major research themes in the area. The research themes are: erosion and solid transport; coastal ecohydrology; karst hydrogeolo...

The Minervois karst, South of France, developed in the Eocene carbonate formation, constitutes a regional karst system divided in several subsystems. The Lower Karst Subsystem developing at the base of the series is formed by small to medium size conduits with a circular cross section, organized in mazes and cut off by the canyons. It constitutes t...

Abstract: Coastal karst aquifers are common around Mediterranean Sea. Belonging to aquifers with potentially important storage, they represent current or future groundwater resource. They discharge either at the coastal zone or directly into the sea at karst submarine spring (SMKS) level. The SMKS are often considered as non conventional resource w...

Environmental data sets are often multidimensional and consequently display complex structure. This article shows the limitations of principal component analysis (PCA) for the study of such three-dimensional (3D) data sets. These limitations can be resolved by the use of the statistical tool STATIS. The inlet (a swallow hole) and the outlet (a spri...

In the Saida area, Algeria, a regional aquifer has formed in Jurassic carbonate rocks. Recharged by direct infiltration and swallow holes on horsts, it discharges into the Saida graben. Geochemical and isotope contents show deep groundwater flow at temperatures of around 100 °C at depth and CO2 of deep origin, developing a hydrothermal karst interc...

Numerous quantitative and qualitative variables control suspended sediment dynamics in karst systems. The objective of this study was to identify the hydrodynamic variables controlling the transport properties of particles in a karst aquifer (western Paris basin). The particle size distribution of suspended sediment infiltrating via a swallow hole...

In August 1983, 18 samples were collected in Norwegian karst environments: seepage waters, surface flow upstream sinkholes or caves, allogenic and authigenie karst springs. Hydrochemical data (ion contents and computed variables for CO-CaCO system) are described by means of a factor analysis, the principal components analysis. Four factors, respons...

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A conceptual model of the functioning of a complex coastal karst aquifer in southern Spain is presented. The system has well developed conduits below sea level and is connected to the Mediterranean Sea. It discharges through two conduits 12 m below sea level, 20 km apart. The Moraig conduit is the main outlet; the discharge to the sea is brackish....

The hydrogeological study of some karst systems in Lebanon shows important storage capacity, up to 27billionsm3 for Zarka system, the spring of Orontes River. Their geological and morphological settings, as well as their hydrodynamic function, show structures developed below the level of present springs, probably up to several hundreds meters at de...

Along the Levantine coast, submarine springs are considered as an exploitable resource. The European project MEDITATE attempted to assess the groundwater resource and the exploitability of submarine springs. Two aquifer systems were studied in detail: Bassieh in Syria and Chekka in Lebanon, both typical of the regional settings. These springs disch...

This work deals with a rainfall-discharge model applied to a well known karst aquifer. A new approach is developed in order to minimize the fitting parameters: here, some of the model parameters do not result from a simple fitting, as it was the case with earlier models, i.e., some of them were assessed from the hydrograph analysis. The conceptual...

Transport modalities in karst aquifers are complex. Current methods do not allow quantification and identification of transport processes occurring over very short time scales. Resuspension and deposition of sediment occurring during flood conditions must be analysed at a high temporal resolution. These phenomena, occurring over very short time sca...

This article reports on current knowledge of coastal karst aquifers, in which conduit flow is dominant, and its aim is to characterise the functioning of these systems which are closely linked to the sea. First, earlier and recent studies of these aquifers are discussed. On the basis of their findings, it can be shown that two essential mechanisms...

The excellent topographic condition of the limestone canyons for dam construction may be rejected if they are karstified. Karst features cause the reservoir not to be impermeable enough to permit the water to fill it and leakage occurs and often increases with time. Moreover, karst features may involve the stability of the dam itself. A few operate...

In a karst system, the characterization of transport properties is based on the comparison of natural tracers observed at the inlet (a swallow hole on the karst plateau) and the outlets of the system (a spring and a well). At Norville, northwest France, electrical conductivity (EC) and turbidity (T) were used as natural tracers for characterizing d...

The karst system of La Mortola (France–Italy) discharges at the submarine freshwater spring of La Mortola. It was studied through in situ measurements made over 10 months in the submarine spring. The data, coupled with an investigation of the recharge area, allow us to interpret the functioning of the system. A reservoir model was then developed in...

Use of the coefficient of variation (CV) of specific conductance has been a simple and popular approach to classifying karst aquifers; however, problems with this approach arise because specific conductance frequency distributions (CFDs) are usually multimodal and the use of the CV sometimes erroneously classifies aquifers in terms of their dominan...

The Aggitis karst system developed in the marbles of the Rhodope massif. The conditions of the development of its karst drainage network are determined from the geological and geomorphologic settings by means of a microstructural analysis, following Eraso’s method. This analysis shows that the karst conduit network intensely developed in the wester...

The Asmari limestone formation is the major aquifer system at the Khersan 3 Dam site, Zagros, Iran. Characterization of the aquifer system and study of karst development are essential for forecasting leakage potential and to plan remediation works. The aquifer functioning and karst structure were evaluated by geology, well hydrodynamics and natural...

Karst aquifers are the main groundwater resource in Lebanon as well as in most Mediterranean countries. Most of them are not exploited in a sustainable way, partly because their characteristics remain unknown. Karst aquifers are so complex that the assessment of their resource and their exploitable storage requires an analysis of their whole functi...

In many Mediterranean countries coastal carbonate aquifers have not been exploited in an appropriate manner, contributing to both sea water intrusion far from coastal areas and to groundwater pollution. This occurs mainly as a result of the lack of knowledge about the karstic characteristics of the aquifers. A number of solutions are either impleme...

The last deglaciation and its climatic events, such as the Bolling-Allerod (BA) and the Younger-Dryas (YD), have been clearly recorded in the delta C-13 profiles of three stalagmites from caves from Southern France to Northern Tunisia. The three delta C-13 records, dated by thermal ionization mass spectrometric uranium-thorium method (TIMS), show g...

Breakthrough tailing has been observed during dye-tracing recovery tests in the Norville aquifer system (chalk), France. Karst-conduit flow and transport parameters were assessed using two different interpretative methods: the linear graphical method and the Chatwin method (implemented in the Qtracer2 program). The linear graphical method was used...

Aware of the need for a sustainable water resources management policy, the Conseil Général of Hérault, together with BRGM and CNRS, is conducting a research project on the hydrogeology of the binary Cent Fonts karst system (60 km2). This aquifer system is partially fed by Bueges river water losses. A methodological approach using hydrographical ana...

Abstract— Water scarcity mitigation is an important challenge facing many countries around the world, including states in the Mediterranean region. Population growth is a particular driver of increasing water stress and in Mediterranean countries is forecast to increase by up to 150% in the next decades. Water demand will consequently increase acro...

Aquifères et eaux souterraines en France, première synthèse des connaissances jamais réalisée sur les eaux souterraines de la France métropolitaine et des départements et territoires d'outre-Mer, constitue un événement dans l'histoire de l'hydrogéologie française. Cet ouvrage de référence, en deux tomes, rédigé par près de 80 spécialistes de l'hydr...

Karst science is a complicated research domain that touches upon the areas of geology, geochemistry, hydrology, geomorphology, speleology, paleoclimatology, biol-ogy, and archaeology. It requires the help of cave explorers and divers, as well as geolo-gists, geochemists, mathematicians, and physicists expert in modeling. Each of these scientists co...

The Alvand River basin, situated in the northwest of the Zagros mountain range, Iran, drains carbonate aquifers through some important karst springs. The physical, chemical and isotopic characteristics of spring water were studied for two years in order to assess the origin of groundwater and determine the factors driving the geochemical compositio...

Karst aquifers have complex and original characteristics which make them very different from other aquifers: high heterogeneity created and organised by groundwater flow; large voids, high flow velocities up to several hundreds of m/h, high flow rate springs up to some tens of in 3/S. Different conceptual models, known from the literature, attempt...

A methodological approach using inverse modeling was used to characterize the functioning of the deep and shallow reservoirs of the Thau karst aquifer system. Three springs were monitored at the convergence of rising saline water diluted with shallow groundwater in karst conduits and unmixed shallow groundwater that behaves as confined groundwater....

This chapter discusses the natural tracing in karst aquifers. Porous and fissure aquifers show statistical homogeneity of their physical and hydraulic characteristics on a scale ranging from tens to several hundreds of meters. Their groundwater resources can actually be explored by a simple approach, i.e., defining the aquifer geometry from geologi...

We investigated the hydrochemistry of a complex karst hydrosystem made of two carbonate units along a coastal lagoon. Ground water emerges on the lagoon floor from a submarine spring. In addition, thermal waters circulate through the limestone and mix with karst water near the lagoon shore. A distinction between the water from the two carbonate uni...

To answer one of the main questions of hydrogeologists implementing boreholes or working on pollution questions in a karst environment—i.e., where is the ground water?—numerous tools including geophysics are used. However, the contribution of geophysics differs from one method to the other. The magnetic resonance sounding (MRS) method has the advan...

For more than a century, hydrologists and hydrogeologists have been investigating the processes of stream and spring baseflow recession, for obtaining data on aquifer characteristics. The Maillet Formula [Librairie Sci., A. Hermann, Paris (1905) 218], an exponential equation widely used for recession curve analysis, is an approximate analytical sol...

The potable water supply in Malta is heavily dependent on groundwater. The two main aquifers, the Perched Aquifer and the Mean Sea Level Aquifer (MSLA), are vertically stacked and separated by impermeable formations. Groundwater is now being threatened by over-pumping and pollution. An isotope and chemical survey was undertaken on rain and groundwa...