Qualitative and quantitative analysis of a spring discharge hydrograph in a pre-alpine watershed

The matter of managing water resources has been gaining great momentum during the past decades, even in areas where abundance of water is currently available. With ongoing climate change, vital supplies should be handled by using best practices in order to gain knowledge and experience in case of unfavourable future scenarios. Analysis of spring discharge has led to a description of the reliability of a given spring according to its response to precipitation and snowmelt as certain regularities can be distinguished in the trends of the spring behaviour. On the other hand, regular chemical analysis could illustrate dependences of water quality on the discharge volumes which are characterized by a certain variability during the year. A reliable evaluation of a spring discharge should thus comprehend both qualitative and quantitative analysis. In this work we demonstrate a framework for spring discharge analysis, based on simple but effective analytical and statistical techniques that yield a characterization of the reliability of the system and bring out interesting patterns in the response of the discharge to varying meteorological conditions. Application of such techniques could be implemented to a range of scales in order to characterize the quality and quantity of the available water resource.