- 1Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Department of Applied Earth and Environmental Sciences, Al al-Bayt University, Mafraq, Jordan
- 2Environment, Water and Energy Research Center, Al al-Bayt University, Mafraq, Jordan
- 3Geosciences Centre, Department of Applied Geology, Georg August University of Göttingen, Goldschmidtstrasse 3, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
- 4Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics, Stilleweg 2, 30655 Hannover, Germany
- 5Corresponding Author; ibraheem.hamdan@aabu.edu.jo
Keywords: Karst aquifer, drought, Tanour and Rasoun springs, Jordan
Due to limited precipitation and water resources, Jordan mainly depends on groundwater resources to address water scarcity challenges. This puts tremendous pressure on groundwater resources that increased due to population growth, droughts, and the effects of climate change. In Jordan, there are more than 800 springs. The most important springs emerge from karst aquifers, where some larger share of recharge is facilitated via inflow into karst surface features, concomitant with a generally higher risk to pollution due to mobilization of pollutants in the course of extreme events.
Tanour and Rasoun karst springs are among the most important karst springs in Jordan. The springs that discharge from upper Cretaceous limestones, are located in the northern part of Jordan and served as the main local water supply for surrounding villages.
The main challenge in developing a drought early warning system for karst springs is the application to sparsely gauged karst aquifer catchments, such as Tanour and Rasoun Springs. To meet this challenge we performed further measurements on spring-water hydrological and physico-chemical variables, along with projection of drought indicators recently employed for an adjacent karst aquifers with higher data availability.
Records for different parameters in Tanour Spring were monitored, on an hourly basis, since 2014 (i.e. Water temperature (c°), Conductivity (ms/cm), Salinity (sal), TDS (g/l), Density (g/l), pH, Oxygen content (mg/l), Oxygen saturation (%), Turbidity (NTU), TSS (g/l), and Flow (m3/h) (the flow pressure probe has discontinuity in measurements due to some physical problems in the probe). Moreover, offline probes were installed in the Rasoun Spring to monitor water temperature and electrical conductivity.
The long-term monitored data is used to develop an integrated method to determine groundwater recharge and predict droughts in the karst aquifers to support water management in this semi-arid region.
How to cite: Hamdan, I., Kavousi, A., and Sauter, M.: Development of a process-based method to predict droughts in karst aquifers- A case study of Tanour and Rasoun springs, North of Jordan, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13967, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13967, 2025.
