Time variant cross correlation to assess residence time of water and implication for hydraulics of a sink-rise karst system

Abstract

Transport rates and residence time in the subsurface are critical parameters for understanding water-rock interactions for efficient contaminant remediation. This paper presents a methodology for assessing flow and transit time of water through hydrological systems, with specific applications to karst systems and implication for hydraulics of a conduit system surrounded by a porous and permeable intergranular matrix. A time variant cross-correlation function analysis is applied to bivariate time series that characterize mass transfer, assuming a stationary system using sliding windows of various sizes. We apply the method to 1 year long temperature records in the Santa Fe River (north central Florida) measured at (1) the River Sink, where all the incoming surface water drains into a sinkhole, (2) Sweetwater Lake, where the river resurges into a 500 m long karst window, and (3) the River Rise, where the water discharges from a first-magnitude karst spring. Results are compared with those obtained using specific conductivity. Estimated residence time ranges from less than 1 day during floods to more than 15 days during base flow within the 8000 m flow path between the River Sink and the River Rise. Results are used to characterize geometric, hydraulic, and hydrodynamic properties of this sink-rise system with strong matrix-conduit interactions. These properties are critical to the chemical and physical behavior of surface water-groundwater mixing. Our results also have direct implications for sampling strategies and hydrograph separation of many karst systems with different degrees and types of matrix porosity and permeability. © 2011 by the American Geophysical Union.