Hydrodynamic characteristics of a typical karst spring system based on time series analysis in northern China

In order to study the hydrodynamic characteristics of the karst aquifers in northern China, time series analyses (correlation and spectral analysis in addition with hydrograph recession analysis) are applied on Baotu Spring and Heihu Spring in Jinan karst spring system, a typical karst spring system in northern China. Results show that the auto-correlation coefficient of spring water level reaches the value of 0.2 after 123 days and 117 days for Baotu Spring and Heihu Spring, respectively. The regulation time obtained from the simple spectral density function in the same period is 187 days and 175 days for Baotu Spring and Heihu Spring. The auto-correlation coefficient of spring water level reaches the value of 0.2 in 34–82 days, and regulation time ranges among 40–59 days for every single hydrological year. The delay time between precipitation and spring water level obtained from cross correlation function is around 56 days for the period of 2012–2019, and varies among 30–79 days for every single hydrological year. In addition, the spectral bands in cross amplitude functions and gain functions are small with 0.02, and the values in the coherence functions are small. All these behaviors illustrate that Jinan karst spring system has a strong memory effect, large storage capacity, noticeable regulation effect, and time series analysis is a useful tool for studying the hydrodynamic characteristics of karst spring system in northern China.