RT Journal Article
T1 A common framework for the development of spring water contamination early warning system in western Mediterranean karst areas: Spanish and French sites
A1 Fernández-Ortega, Jaime
A1 Ulloa-Cedamanos, Francesco
A1 Barberá-Fornell, Juan Antonio
A1 Batiot-Guilhe, Christelle
A1 Jourde, Hervé
A1 Andreo-Navarro, Bartolomé
K1 Agua potable - Contaminación
AB Karst water resources, traditionally used worldwide for drinking purposes, are highly vulnerable to contamination. Scientific-technical efforts must therefore be done to ensure sufficient water quality for human consumption. Early-Warning-Systems emerge as an effective spring scale protection strategy for real-time identification of contamination episodes at drinking water capture points. With this ambition, the proposed stepwise procedure for the implementation of site-specific Early-Warning-Systems (EWS), focuses on three critical features: identification of groundwater contamination proxy parameters, warning dissemination and system validation. It was tested at three karst springs affected by temporary faecal contamination and intended for supplying drinking water to populations in Spain (Ubrique) and France (Montpellier). The applied statistical techniques, coupled to the analysis of individual flood events at karst springs, allowed to identify the optimal combination of groundwater and contamination proxy parameters at each study site according to the main contaminants and recharge mechanisms. The decision tree-like workflow, used to evaluate groundwater quality at hourly time step and set up the EWS, was then constructed considering a specific combination of hydroclimatic, hydrodynamic and physical variables together with national regulations for drinking water. Hence, warning thresholds were adapted to the behaviour of each karst system, and used to trigger the alarm when specific parameters and proxies exceeded the defined limits. The performance of the EWS was assessed by implementing 4 specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) dedicated to appreciate the effectiveness of the workflows in identifying contamination events and verifying estimated warning thresholds. The performed analysis demonstrated an overall successful functioning of the EWS for the three case studies, with mean anticipation times ranging between 12 and 45 h and <3 % of failure rate.
PB Esevier
YR 2024
FD 2024
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10630/35041
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10630/35041
LA eng
NO Jaime Fernández-Ortega, Francesco Ulloa-Cedamanos, Juan Antonio Barberá, Christelle Batiot-Guilhe, Hervé Jourde, Bartolomé Andreo, A common framework for the development of spring water contamination early warning system in western Mediterranean karst areas: Spanish and French sites, Science of The Total Environment, Volume 956, 2024, 177294, ISSN 0048-9697, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177294
NO Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga / CBUAThis research is a contribution to the PRIMA funded European project KARMA (Karst Aquifer Resources availability and quality in the Mediterranean Area – ANR-18-PRIM-0005); the Spanish project (ref. PCI2019-103675) funded by the International Joint Programme of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.This paper also contributes to the projects PID2019-111759RB-I00 funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and PLSQ-00230 funded by the Autonomous Government of Andalusia (Spain); and to the Research Group RNM-308 of the Junta de Andalucía. The authors thank the local government of Ubrique town and the local water company “Empresa Mixta de Aguas de Ubrique” and the authorities of the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park.All data for the Lez spring is provided by the MEDYCYSS observatory which belong to the KARST observatory network (SNO KARST) initiative from the INSU/CNRS (FRANCE). The authors thanks Montpellier Mediterranée Métropole to allow a scientific collaboration on the Lez aquifer and Pascal Brunet (HSM) for his help on field fluorescence monitoring.
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 20 ene 2026