Analysis of the utility and management of karst underground reservoirs: case study of the Perucac karst spring

Abstract

The construction of an underground dam and reservoir to provide an artificial water storage and karst control groundwater discharge regime is one of the most complex systems of tapping structure in karst. There are not many examples of underground dams, which increase the importance of risk management in their construction. This study proposes a procedure for constructing the underground karst reservoirs, focusing on the example of Perucac spring located in the Dinaric karst in Western Serbia. Possible effects of building of the underground reservoir are analyzed and a solution for a tapping structure is proposed. The applied concept is based on the karst groundwater budget, which provides valuable information on storage changes in the karst aquifer, enables further predictions of the optimal exploitation rate, and facilitates karst groundwater management. The results of this study give a basis for several possible technical solutions for a future tapping structure. These solutions were additionally analyzed in the process of multicriterial ranking to find the optimal process.