Investigation of karst hydrological processes by using grey auto-incidence analysis

The karst hydrological processes are the response of karst groundwater system to precipitation. The precipitation penetrates through the vadose zone, the subsequent groundwater pressure wave propagates to a spring outlet, and then, the spring discharge changes. This paper proposes a grey auto-incidence analysis for studying the karst hydrological processes. The method can detect the periodicity of a time series, for example, precipitation and spring discharge. Then the approach is applied to Liulin Springs Basin, China. The results show that the auto-incidence degree of precipitation reaches to the maximum (i.e., 0.816) when time delay equals to 8 years. The auto-incidence degree of spring discharge reaches to the maximum (i.e., 0.865) when time delay equals to 3 years. These results show that the periodicity of precipitation is 8 years, and of spring discharge is 3 years. The difference of periodicity between the precipitation and the spring discharge reveals that the processes of precipitation recharging groundwater and groundwater transport are regulated or controlled by karst aquifer. Because of heterogeneity of karst aquifer, the quick flow and base flow occur during the groundwater propagation, which causes the periodicity of spring discharge is not coincidence with of precipitation. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014