Introductory editorial to the topical collection: hydrogeological and geomorphological advances in karst and caves research

Excerpt

Karst is the term used to define a singular landscape developed on soluble rocks, mainly carbonates and evaporites. It covers around 20% of the emerging land (Ford and Williams 2007) and is characterized by unique landforms, both on the surface and underground, created by bedrock dissolution. This process allows the formation of conduit networks, which convert this type of media into triple porosity aquifers (Worthington 2007). Consequently, karst formations are commonly good groundwater reservoirs, particularly those of carbonate type, which often have an excellent chemical quality. For those reasons, humankind has relied on karst groundwater resources for drinking and irrigation in many civilizations since ancient times. Nowadays, the use of karst groundwater accounts for roughly 13–20% of the global groundwater abstractions (Ford and Williams 2007; Stevanović 2019), although the percentage increases in some areas of the world, such as southwest China, the United States, or many European countries (Green et al. 2006; Chen et al. 2017). The relationship between people and karst is also closely linked to caves, which have been used as shelters since the dawn of humanity. Although societies no longer inhabit karst cavities, the inner beauty of most of them and the speleothems that adorn them continue to attract people. Proof of this is the existence of hundreds of tourist caves worldwide that jointly attract 150 million visitors annually (Chiarini et al. 2022). …