The International Journal of Speleology, the official journal of the Union Internationale de Spéléologie, is excited to announce a call for papers for a Special Issue on Cave monitoring: the good, the bad, and the nice.
Understanding the dynamics of cave environments requires intensive and extensive measurements and monitoring of the physical, chemical, geomorphological, and hydrological parameters, encompassing all features of the caves (geology, hydrology, morphology, air, water, biota, and human impact). Technological advances have shifted observations from sporadic to continuous monitoring, albeit methods vary significantly in frequency, precision, accuracy and duration. Historically, measurements were taken on a “need to know” basis, often focusing on specific parameters like air temperature, while overlooking potentially crucial factors such as CO2 levels or water, soil or rock temperature. Additionally, the lack of affordable and suitable equipment for harsh cave conditions, standardized tools and methodologies has made it challenging to compare datasets across different studies. Despite these limitations, we have managed to gain a fairly good, albeit conceptual, understanding of the various cave processes. The recent surge in affordable, complex monitoring devices has led to a plethora of monitoring strategies and an overwhelming amount of data that both help refine our concepts but also complicate them unnecessarily.
To address these challenges, we propose a special issue focused on comprehensive cave monitoring strategies. We invite contributions from the caving community in two ways: 1) review papers that provide guidelines and “manuals” for future monitoring studies, and 2) case studies that detail both the successes and failures of past monitoring efforts. We particularly encourage the publication of challenges and negative results, spectacular failures, and examples of suboptimal outcomes – these can often be more instructive than straightforward successes. By establishing a standardized approach to cave monitoring, we aim to unlock a deeper understanding of “our” subterranean worlds.
Submission deadline to submit paper: September 30, 2024
Submission format: Please adhere to the author guidelines found on the journal’s website.
Submit online at: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/ijs/
When submitting your paper, please select: Cave Monitoring under the Type of submission entry
Guest Editors:
Nenad Buzjak, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Aurel Persoiu, Emil Racovita Institute of Speleology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Christos Pennos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece