Human Disturbance of Karst Environments

Abstract

Karst environments have been impacted by human activity for thousands ofyears, ever since people started living in caves for shelter, needingbuilding supplies and water. As human population has increased, so hasits disturbance of the karst landscape. Quarrying, pollution,groundwater extraction, construction, and agriculture are the majorculprits for disturbing both surface and subsurface karst. Ecosystems inthis type of environment have been shown to be quite vulnerable to humanactivities. Methods to quantify this disturbance, such as the karstdisturbance index, have been created to help resource managers formulateapproaches to reduce this anthropogenic impact. In addition, models tomeasure karst vulnerability, in particular karst aquifers, have grown innumber over the last two decades. When measuring human disturbance, itis important to consider matters of time and scale, as both willinfluence how and what data is collected.