Passive Seismic Monitoring of a Karst Aquifer During Flood Events.

Abstract

Summary Karst aquifers are considered challenging sites for monitoring. They endure various behaviors during floods due to their heterogeneous structure and complex recharge mechanisms. This shows that multiple parameters should interfere as well as multiple methods emerging from different disciplines should be used to investigate such environments. This work is held with the objective of identifying the dynamics of superficial and deep water flows in a karst environment. Taking Fourbanne’s aquifer as a case study, we show in the following the ability of seismic noise combined with hydrological data to detect water flows and bedload transport in the vicinity of the underground conduit. This study is a part of the SISMEAUCLIM project that aims to develop a new approach to temporal monitoring of karst aquifers, subject to floods by analyzing jointly seismological, hydrogeological, and atmospheric data.