Karst Without Boundaries

Karstified rocks of different lithology cover more than 10% of the continental surface of our planet. It is known that some 20% or even a few percent more of the global population largely depends on karstic groundwater but in many karst areas all over the world there are limited natural resources including absence of drinking waters. The problems of water shortage, equitable water use or water protection from pollution, become more problematic when they come to transboundary regions. The Dinaric region is a classical karst area where created borders of newly established countries after the civil war in 1990s resulted with an urgent need to create ambience for sustainable water management. The project DIKTAS is one of the first ever attempts to establish sustainable integrated management principles in a transboundary karst aquifer of the magnitude of the Dinaric Karst System. This volume presents selected papers from the conference held in June 2014 in Trebinje, Bosnia & Herzegovina including presentations of some of the project’s achievements but also number of other research results conducted in karst environments worldwide.

Zoran Stevanovic is professor and head of the Centre for Karst Hydrogeology at the Department of Hydrogeology of the University of Belgrade, Serbia. He has extensive?experience with research projects concerning groundwater management and aquifer exploitation and control (in Algeria, Iraq, Georgia, Bhutan, The Seychelles, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Balkan countries). He is consultant at the FAO/UN and UNESCO, and member of the Karst Commission of International Association of Hydrogeologists and the Board on Karst and Speleology of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts, as well as?president of the Serbian Geological Society. Professor Stevanovic has?published around 300 papers, wrote and edited 15 monographs and two textbooks.

Neven Kre?ic is senior principal and Hydrogeology Practice Leader at Amec Foster Wheeler, in the USA. For this, he works with U.S. and international clients, including federal, state, and local agencies; industries such as water, transportation, and power utilities; and oil, petrochemical, chemical, mining, and construction companies. He wrote and edited seven textbooks in addition to numerous scientific and professional papers and instructed international workshops and academic courses in groundwater modeling, remediation and hydrogeologic conceptual site development around the world. Dr. Kre?ic is co-chair of the Karst Commission of the International Association of Hydrogeologists, past vice president for International Affairs of the American Institute of Hydrology, and committee member of the Groundwater Management and Remediation Specialty Group of the International Water Association.

Neno Kukuric is groundwater specialist with over 30 years of experience gained in more than 20 countries worldwide. His professional interests lie in international water cooperation and application of informed management, encompassing technical, social-economic, institutional and political aspects of water problems. In the last several years, he has been particularly involved in assessment and management of transboundary groundwaters worldwide. He is the editor of the UNESCO/WMO Transboundary Aquifers of the World Map. Previously, he was responsible, among others, for a development of the Integrated Hydrological Model of the Netherlands and the Hydrogeological Information System of the Netherlands.