Development

Sen­sors for tem­pe­ra­ture, pres­sure, CO2, air ve­lo­ci­ty and so­me­times other pa­ra­me­ters (e.g. ra­don) are nee­ded to un­ders­tand the un­der­ground cli­mate and va­ria­tions in wa­ter le­vels.

Most ins­tru­ments on the mar­ket per­form poor­ly in this de­man­ding en­vi­ron­ment (ve­ry high hu­mi­di­ty, aqua­tic and/or mud­dy condi­tions, lack of elec­tri­ci­ty, etc.). The SISKA de­ve­lops and tests its ins­tru­ments in the field and de­ve­lops so­lu­tions adap­ted to each case of stu­dy.

The SISKA de­ve­lops and pro­poses spe­ci­fic me­thods for cha­rac­te­ri­sing and ma­na­ging the kars­tic en­vi­ron­ment.

Water resources

Un­ders­tan­ding karst ground­wa­ter re­quires a 3D as­sess­ment of the geo­lo­gy. KARSYS is a de­duc­tive ap­proach ba­sed on the geo­lo­gy of a site and the hy­drau­lic prin­ciples go­ver­ning kars­ti­fi­ca­tion. Once a site is de­fi­ned, SISKA de­ploys a 4 step ap­proach: (i) iden­ti­fying the kars­tic pro­per­ties of the aqui­fers, (ii) es­ta­bli­shing a 3D geo­lo­gi­cal mo­del of aqui­fer units, (iii) ge­ne­ra­ting a 3D hy­dro­geo­lo­gi­cal mo­del through in­te­gra­tion of hy­dro­lo­gi­cal da­ta and (iv) iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and de­li­mi­ta­tion of flow sys­tems.
This re­sults in:

• the de­li­mi­ta­tion of spring ba­sins;
• the vo­lu­me­tric as­sess­ment of ground­wa­ter re­sources;
• a mo­del of un­der­ground wa­ter flow paths.

The func­tio­na­li­ty of Vi­sual­KAR­SYS,the on­line ser­vice for buil­ding and vie­wing KARSYS mo­dels, is constant­ly being im­pro­ved.

Recent de­ve­lop­ments al­so aim to in­te­grate the re­sults of KARSYS in­to the da­ta mo­del de­fi­ned by the Confe­de­ra­tion.

SISKA de­ve­lops and ap­plies Karst­MOD (hy­dro­lo­gi­cal and hy­drau­lic mo­dels) to si­mu­late ground­wa­ter dy­na­mics and thus as­sess re­charge (ef­fec­tive in­fil­tra­tion), sto­rage, and di­scharge from one or more out­lets.

Water protection

At the re­quest of the Fe­de­ral Of­fice for the En­vi­ron­ment (FOEN), SISKA has fi­ni­shed up­da­ting the EPIK me­thod for as­ses­sing the vul­ne­ra­bi­li­ty of wa­ter catch­ments to pol­lu­tion. The pro­cess in­cludes the de­ve­lop­ment of pro­to­cols for map­ping soil thi­ck­ness and wa­ter in­fil­tra­tion in karst (karst map).

Instabilities

Kars­tA­LEA pro­vides geo­lo­gists with a prac­ti­cal me­thod for as­ses­sing kars­ti­fi­ca­tion. While ini­tial­ly de­ve­lo­ped for tun­ne­ling, it has been ex­ten­ded to pre­dict in­sta­bi­li­ties and col­lapses. The me­thod conti­nues to evolve with each new ap­pli­ca­tion.

Kars­tA­LEA: Prac­ti­cal ins­truc­tions to down­load