Decade of Research in Macleay Caves: Key Findings and Future Directions
Around a decade ago, thanks to a government committee that I was a member of, I was encouraged to consider improving our understanding of the caves and karst in the Macleay karst region of Australia*.
*Roughly midway between Sydney and Brisbane on the east coast of Australia.
That led to me to working with the Kempsey Speleological Society (KSS) members, the local experts on the caves and karst. Some of the KSS designed some climate and hydrology monitoring projects that they were interested in, to know more about the caves and karst in the region. The KSS Cave Studies Team was born.
Forward on over a decade… the KSS has become ‘my’ caving club. A decade ago, the KSS Cave Studies Team designed sampling programs to understand cave climate, and some of the complex hydrology of the Macleay karst. The cave climate research is still unpublished, but yes, we have some very long term climate data.
The first hydrology paper, using drip loggers placed in caves in an altitudinal transect through the Macleay karst, was published in the Journal of Hydrology in 2020, which was interesting for anyone interested in how much rainfall is needed to replenish the groundwater in the regions. But it was only the first step in understanding the karst hydrology in the region.
Which sets the scene for this new pre-print, with the title “Identification of synoptic climate and drought controls on rainfall stable water isotopic composition in the Macleay karst region of eastern Australia”. It is online here and open for community and research comments.
The story of the paper goes something like this…
The KSS desgn their research question a decade ago, and we implemented the monitoring programs to get some answers (hopefully!). Low cost solutions were great, and water stable isotope analyses of spring water samples was one that I proposed as a natural tracer and something that could KI could help with to enable the KSS Cave Studies Team to understand the karst hydrology of the region. That would require grab samples of water from springs and creeks in the region. And rainfall samples to measure the isotopic composition of the ‘input’. The KSS Cave Studies Team were ‘in’!
Please head over to the pre-print to read all about the results, with rainfall isotope data and spring water data from 2017 to 2023. The pre-print has all the formal acknowledgements and research credit statements, but they are quite formal. So here…
I would like to thank Sophia Meehan, without whom, none of this would have happened.
In the KSS, special thanks to Allister Gee for leading the ‘big picture’ monitoring program design.
Philip Holberton, who I never knew as a cave explorer, but I did as a retired former GP and the KSS journal editor, managed monthly IAEA grade water isotope sampling from his property for three years from 2017-2020, including through bushfire evacuations. Vale Philip. He never got to see the results of his meticulous sampling.
Glen Bowman, one of the founding KSS Cave team, who took on the rainfall sampling and went to event sampling from his property from 2020 and is ongoing. Data from his samples through to 2023 are also in the pre-print.
And it is a huge effort to collect the karst spring and creek samples. Thanks to the whole KSS Cave Studies Team for collecting these samples. I have been on many of these club caving trips, and I’ve got to all the sample sites. This is tough, tough country to move through, and at the same time one of the most beautiful landscapes I have have worked in. Thank you to the team for agreeing to pack sample bottles on all those caving expeditions
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5497377
Z 
That’s a wrap! The 2nd EnMAP User Workshop brought 3 packed days of talks, posters & hands-on tutorials —exploring how EnMAP data supports research on vegetation, water, soil & atmosphere. 
Greg Cocks 
- and the sign, well... )