Hydrologic 5

About the Salem Plateau, (Imes and Emmett (1993) citing Vinyard and Feder (1974) wrote “An extensive karst system has developed in the Ozark aquifer where it crops out in the Salem Plateau. The large thickness of carbonate rock and extensive network of solution-enlarged fractures, vertical joints, and bedding planes enables surface water to rapidly infiltrate the Ozark aquifer. Major conduit systems, many of which are several feet wide and hundreds of feet long, occupy the upper few hundred feet of the aquifer. Caverns and large springs abound in this part of the Ozarks". Perhaps the easiest way to view the aquifer is the Imes and Emmett model from 1993 presented in Figure 12. The boundary conditions and geographic cells have greater complexity than is apparent in the simple water balance. Climate, evapotranspiration, and infiltration have been abstracted from the water budget and estimates of recharge are made directly as a fraction of precipitation as illustrated in Table 6. The process is described by Imes and Emmett (1993) as “simulated regional-flow water budget and the water budget derived from estimates of recharge to the water table and surface-water and ground-water interaction is shown in”, meaning estimated directly from precipitation assuming the pre aquifer losses.