Andy Baker

Eurokarst is the bi-annual meeting for international research in the hydrogeology of karst and carbonate reservoirs.

On 31 August – 4 September 2026, the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland is hosting, and we are bringing our Australian research to Europe, arguably the home of karst research.

Our presentations highlight how underground spaces such as caves, tunnels and mines, can be used to better understand when, where and why groundwater recharge event occur. And we introduce how caves can be used as observatories of groundwater recharge in the past, present and future. Our research is funded by the Australian Research Council through LIEF and Laureate Fellowship grants, and our collaborators include European colleagues at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland and the Technical University of Dresden.

You can read about the Eurokarst2026 meeting here, and extended abstracts are available for all the conference presentations. Want to know more? Here are all the presentations that use data from our Australian sites.

Predicting infrequent recharge events in water-limited karstic aquifers presented by Gregoire Mariethoz (University of Lausanne) investigates the relationship between groundwater recharge events and river flood events at two sites in New South Wales. Have you ever wondered which are more frequent – river floods or groundwater recharge events? We have some evidence here: https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/76355/submission/64

Recharge typologies of karst drip water in the vadose zone across southeastern Australia presented by Danyang Sun (UNSW) uses signal processing and time series analysis as a novel methodology to identify recharge typologies for karst drip water. This is the presentation of her paper that was just published in Water Resources Research. You can read her abstract here: https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/76355/submission/24

How does groundwater recharge relate to weather and climate? Integrating cave drip water hydrology, stalagmites, and modelling is an overview presentation of all of our Australian projects that I am presenting. It covers our ‘National Groundwater Recharge Observing System’ (NGROS) and ‘Caves and their stalagmites: linking climate to groundwater recharge (C2G) projects. If you are interested in how much rainfall is needed to generate groundwater recharge, how often it occurs, and how it varies with climate, this might be for you: https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/76355/submission/27

Understanding recharge dynamics using drip responses in underground spaces presented by Akhilesh Kumar (UNSW) uses a novel application of a transfer function approach to identify dominant recharge modes and response times using cave drip hydrology time series. This new approach should yield data useful for calibrating groundwater recharge models. You can read more here: https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/76355/submission/34

Estimation of Groundwater Recharge in Australia’s Karst Regions is a presentation from Nane Weber (TU Dresden). For the first time, she uses the timing of recharge events observed from our cave observation network to constrain a global karst recharge model, and estimate groundwater recharge volumes. Her abstract is here: https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/76355/submission/71

Key Controls on Precipitation-Driven Groundwater Recharge Occurrences in Southeastern Australia’s Karst Sites is a second presentation from Akhilesh Kumar (UNSW). Using satellite remote sensing products, he investigates the relative importance of rainfall, evapotranspiration, soil moisture and vegetation on the occurrence of recharge events. Which is more important? You can read his recent publication in the Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies here. The conference abstract is here: https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/76355/submission/33