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ANALYSIS OF WATER REGIME AND BALANCE OF SPRINGS FROM THE LOVECH-TARNOVO BASIN, BULGARIA

Tatiana Orehova, Peter Gerginov

Abstract

Water management in karst areas is a challenge as the regime of waters is generally characterized by substantial temporal variability. Water balance analysis is a necessary part of hydrogeological research. The aim of the paper is to study specific features of the water regime and balance of karst springs from the Lovech-Tarnovo karst basin, as well as to evaluate their recharge area. For monthly water balance calculations, the software WaterbalANce was used that is based on the Thornthwaite–Mather method. In addition, the chloride-mass balance was applied to evaluate the recharge area of the studied karst springs contributing to their discharge. The studied karst springs are located at the villages of Musina and Krushuna. The information base includes mean values of the chloride concentration of the spring waters as well as the monthly time series (long several decades) of springflows. The results of the water balance calculations show that the simulated time series of the discharge values give reasonable results. The largest differences between the measured and modelled data were found for the extremes (highs and lows) of the monthly values of the spring discharge. The studied springs are highly vulnerable to droughts. This is due to the limited storage capacity of the aquifer and, therefore, to low static reserves, since there are no conditions for deep karstification. Droughts, especially during the cold half of the year, have the strongest effect on the regime, even if the amount of precipitation in the warm half of the year is around the norm. Obviously, winter precipitation is the most important source of groundwater recharge for the karst basin.

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