Spring water is a critical resource in many parts of the world, however, there are few effective and efficient means of evaluating the vulnerability and sustainability of those resources. This study compares two approaches to evaluate the relative vulnerability of water sources from carbonate- and siliciclastic-sourced springs. The first approach uses a West Virginia protocol for source water assessment; the protocol uses temperature variability and bacterial indicators to identify groundwater influenced by surface water. In the second approach, near-continuous spring temperature data were modeled to quantify seasonal thermal patterns. This comparison was applied to five springs in the Appalachian Valley and Ridge Province, USA. The seasonal thermal patterns in the springs were compared to the modeled air temperature to determine thermal damping and pattern lag. Springs with the least damping and shortest lag were considered to be the most vulnerable to surface influences. In general, both approaches identified the same springs as the most vulnerable and the least vulnerable. In neither approach was the outcome controlled by the geologic unit or rock type. Although long-term data sets are needed to evaluate spring water vulnerability based on thermal patterns, those data are reasonably cost-effective to obtain, and the models require no assumptions about the flow system. The thermal lag times may also be useful in determining integrated residence times for groundwater between recharge input and spring output. These residence times may provide a means to compare the sustainability of springs when lack of data or access limit the use of more complex models.

泉水是世界许多地方的重要资源，但是，很少有有效和高效的方法来评估这些资源的脆弱性和可持续性。本研究比较了两种评估碳酸盐和硅质碎屑泉水源相对脆弱性的方法。第一种方法使用西弗吉尼亚协议进行源水评估；该协议使用温度变化和细菌指标来识别受地表水影响的地下水。在第二种方法中，近乎连续的春季温度数据被建模以量化季节性热模式。这种比较适用于美国阿巴拉契亚山谷和山脊省的五个泉水。将春季的季节性热模式与模拟的气温进行比较，以确定热阻尼和模式滞后。具有最小阻尼和最短滞后的弹簧被认为最容易受到表面影响。一般来说，这两种方法都将相同的弹簧确定为最脆弱和最不脆弱。在这两种方法中，结果都不受地质单元或岩石类型的控制。虽然需要长期数据集来根据热模式评估泉水的脆弱性，但这些数据的获取具有合理的成本效益，并且模型不需要关于流动系统的假设。热滞后时间也可用于确定补给输入和泉水输出之间地下水的综合停留时间。