When carbonate rocks weather, karst landscapes are formed. The groundwater reserves in these layers of earth currently supply 10 to 20 percent of the world population with drinking water. So far, however, researchers have not been able to precisely determine the amount of water present in karst regions. The reason for this is that the computational models cannot adequately capture the special features of hydrological processes in karst regions without observational data. As a result, reliable information for sustainable water management is often lacking. To address this problem, a team led by Tunde Olarinoye, Vera Marx and Assistant Professor Dr. Andreas Hartmann from the University of Freiburg has developed the "World Karst Spring Hydrographs Database" (WoKaS). The group presented the database in the journal Scientific Data.