Human disturbance of karst environments.

Authors

Philip van BeynenFollow
Kaya Van BeynenFollow

SelectedWorks Author Profiles:

Kaya van Beynen

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2011

ISBN

978-94-007-1206-5

Abstract

Karst environments have been impacted by human activity for thousands of years, ever since people started living in caves for shelter, needing building supplies and water. As human population has increased, so has its disturbance of the karst landscape. Quarrying, pollution, groundwater extraction, construction, and agriculture are the major culprits for disturbing both surface and subsurface karst. Ecosystems in this type of environment have been shown to be quite vulnerable to human activities. Methods to quantify this disturbance, such as the karst disturbance index, have been created to help resource managers formulate approaches to reduce this anthropogenic impact. In addition, models to measure karst vulnerability, in particular karst aquifers, have grown in number over the last two decades. When measuring human disturbance, it is important to consider matters of time and scale, as both will influence how and what data is collected.

Language

en_US

Publisher

Springer

Recommended Citation

van Beynen, P.E.& van Beynen, K. (2011). Human disturbance of karst environments. In van Beynen, P.E., (Ed.). Karst Management, (pp. 379-397). New York: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-1207-2_17

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.