Caves demonstrate decrease in rainfall recharge of southwest Australian groundwater is unprecedented for the last 800 years

Abstract

Billions of people worldwide rely on groundwater. As rainfall in many regions in the future is projected to decrease, it is critical to understand the impacts of climate change on groundwater recharge. The groundwater recharge response to a sustained decrease in rainfall across southwest Australia that began in the late 1960s was examined in seven modern speleothems and drip waters from four caves. These show a pronounced increase or uptick in regional drip water and speleothem oxygen isotopic composition (δ¹⁸O) that is not driven by a change in rainfall δ¹⁸O values, but is in response to the shallow karst aquifers becoming disconnected from rainfall recharge due to regional drying. Our findings imply that rainfall recharge to groundwater may no longer be reliably occurring in this region, which is highly dependent on groundwater resources. Examination of the longer speleothem record shows that this situation is unprecedented over the last 800 years.