Applied Sciences

We report anticipated progress in these areas simultaneously, because in this Project solutions to problems associated with the applied aspects (water supply in karst regions and other water-related karst environmental problems) provide tangible, direct, and self-evident benefits to society. Hundreds of millions of people obtain drinking water from karst sources, and ironically many of those that meet the hardest challenges are in nations with emerging economies, for example in Asia, eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. There are many skilled and experienced karst scientists in these countries, sometimes working with limited resources. The proposed IGCP project will work to directly solve one of the most limiting challenges-communication and information access-that can help improve the research and technical and infrastructures and thus make new solutions to problems more likely.

The topic of water supply in karst regions has taken on very timely significance with the recognition (Ford and Williams, 1989) that as many as 25% of the world's population obtains drinking water supplies from vulnerable karst aquifers. At the same time, karst areas often offer difficult challenges in water supply both with the quantity and quality of water sources. In many cases karst waters are not easily accessible from the surface landscape. Some areas present additional challenges due to less accessible deep-seated water sources. Karst waters are also in many cases extremely vulnerable to contamination from urban, agricultural, and other types of land uses that introduce contaminants to the subsurface that travel quickly through karst aquifers with little attenuation to pollute water sources.

In addition to problems with the supply of water, there are other very significant environmental problems that occur in karst regions associated with the movement of water through these systems. These include, for example, sinkhole flooding, land subsidence, and sinkhole collapse than can disrupt urban development and create not only severe economic problems, but in some cases have led to loss of life. There are some karst regions where a combination of natural conditions and human events has created very severe environmental problems. Of the 80 million people who live in the karst region that spreads throughout eight provinces of southwest China, for example, eight million live below the poverty level, and in many areas these problems have been made worse by rock desertification resulting from deforestation of the region's peak cluster karst.

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