Several different approaches have been developed to model the specific characteristics of karst aquifers, taking account of their inherent complex spatial and temporal heterogeneities. This paper sets out the development of a semidistributed modelling approach for applications in an Irish karst context using urban drainage software. The models have proven to be very useful for different studies, with examples given for the ecohydrology of ephemeral karst lakes, extreme groundwater-flood alleviation, karst network investigation, submarine groundwater discharge, and quantification of different recharge and flow components. The limitations of the approach are also highlighted, in particular not being able to simulate diffuse infiltration and flow paths explicitly across the groundwater catchment. Hence, a more distributed, finite-difference modelling approach using MODFLOW Unstructured Grid (USG) with the newly developed Connected Linear Network (CLN) process is then compared against the semidistributed approach on the same karst catchment. Whilst it has proven difficult to achieve the same levels of model performance in simulating the spring flows in the distributed model compared to the semidistributed model, the ability to interrogate the flow paths at any point on the three-dimensional aquifer is demonstrated, which can give new insights into flows (and potential contaminant transport) through such complex systems. The influence of the proximity of highly transmissive conduits on the flow dynamics through the much-lower transmissive matrix cells in which the network is embedded has been particularly investigated.

考虑到岩溶含水层固有的复杂时空异质性，已经开发出几种不同的方法来模拟岩溶含水层的特定特征。本文提出了使用城市排水软件在爱尔兰喀斯特环境中应用的半分布式建模方法的开发。该模型已被证明对不同的研究非常有用，并举例说明了短暂的喀斯特湖的生态水文学，减轻地下水极端洪涝，岩溶网络调查，海底地下水排放以及不同补给量和流量成分的量化。还强调了该方法的局限性，特别是不能模拟地下水中流域的扩散渗透和流动路径。因此，更分散的 然后将使用MODFLOW非结构化网格（USG）和新开发的连接线性网络（CLN）过程的有限差分建模方法与在同一喀斯特流域的半分布式方法进行了比较。尽管已证明与半分布式模型相比，在模拟分​​布式模型中的弹簧流动时难以达到相同水平的模型性能，但仍展示了在三维含水层上任意点处查询流路的能力，这可以对通过此类复杂系统的流量（以及潜在的污染物传输）的新见解。特别研究了高透射率导管的邻近度对通过嵌入网络的低得多的透射率矩阵单元的流动动力学的影响。