Idrogeochimica di sorgenti carsiche dell’area transfrontaliera Italia – Slovenia (Monte Canin)

Scientific community considers the Karst aquifers as one of the most important global water resources but also one of the most vulnerable landscape, linked to environmental impacts and global climate fluctuation and for their particular hydrogeological - hydrogeochemical characterization. Therefore, global environmental change studies have increasingly become important for environmental researches allowing to define the relation between ground water and climate in order to ground water hydrologists and hydrogeochemistry. The main topic of this thesis is geochemical characterization of spring waters of Kanin Mountain karst aquifer, by means of water – rock interactions study, geochemical mobility of important chemical elements, in order to identify the possible geochemical markers by meteo – climatic analysis, that could influence the climatic variability, especially seasonal changes. The researches were focused on geochemical study of springs, which are located in the trans boundary area Italy – Slovenia (Kanin Montain) of the Isonzo river basin. Major and trace elements in water samples were detected by Ion chromatography (anions) and ICP – MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry) (cations and trace elements) and stable isotopes δ18O e δD analysis were carried out in water, snow and rain samples. Moreover, the software GWB (Geochemist’s Workbench) were used to obtain the model of water – rock interaction and arsenic – iron speciation. The analysis results are helpful to identify the links between climatic changes (especially seasonal changes) and the related geochemical variability of springs water of Kanin Mountain. Furthermore, seasonal changes showed the presence of particular environmental geochemical markers to estimate higher vulnerability of karst water resources.