Environ Geol (2008) 53:967974 DOI 10.

1007/s00254-007-0722-x

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Evaporite karst of Albania: main features and cases of environmental degradation

Mario Parise Perikli Qiriazi Skender Sala

Received: 18 May 2006 / Accepted: 6 March 2007 / Published online: 5 April 2007 Springer-Verlag 2007

Abstract The present paper focuses on the description of the main evaporite karst areas of Albania, and on their environmental problems. Even though the majority of the karst areas in Albania is represented by carbonates, evaporites crop out signicantly at several sites, and deserve a specic attention for their morphological, karstic and speleological peculiarities. Vulnerability of karst is well marked by pollution and degradation problems in regions such as Dumre (central Albania), where some tens of lakes of karst origin are present in the PermianTriassic evaporites. Water pollution with negative effects on the local ecosystems, and anthropogenic changes of the natural karst landscape in the last century resulted in intense environmental degradation at Dumre. Messinian evaporites crop out in the Kavaja area (near the Adriatic coast), and at other sites in central-southern Albania. In these areas, surface karst morphology is characterized by a number of dolines, ponors and blind valleys, which often correspond to inlet points of subterranean drainages and caves. Notwithstanding these peculiarities, and the relevance of the area for biospeleological studies, many caves have been destroyed by quarrying activities, resulting in severe losses to
M. Parise (&) CNR-IRPI, Bari, Italy e-mail: m.parise@ba.irpi.cnr.it M. Parise Gruppo Puglia Grotte, Castellana-Grotte (Ba), Italy P. Qiriazi Department of Geography, University of Tirana, Tirana, Albania S. Sala Study Center of Geographical Studies, Tirana, Albania

the natural heritage. Following a general description of the evaporite karst areas of Albania, the paper focuses on the present situation of the evaporites in the country, which is frequently affected by degradation and environmental losses in the karst landscape, and pollution of the aquifers. Keywords Karst Evaporites Degradation Albania

Introduction Many karst areas are present in Albania, with about one quarter of the country area (23%) showing outcrops of soluble rocks (Kristo et al. 1987; Brasellari 1993). Even though the majority of these are underlain by carbonates, evaporite rocks crop out at several sites, and deserve a specic attention for their morphological, hydrological and speleological peculiarities. Despite their value in terms of natural heritage, in recent years these areas suffered from many degradation and pollution problems, exacerbated by the difcult social and economical situation of the Balkans (Qiriazi and Sala 2000). However, they still preserve some typical karst environments, which might be exploited for a sustainable development of sectors of the Albanian territory. Evaporite karst environments are of great naturalistic, environmental, and economic relevance, and their presence, together with the associated soils and vegetation, determine the formation of very peculiar ecosystems and landscapes. Evaporite rocks cover 1.7% of the Albanian territory, which corresponds to 7.6% of the outcrops of soluble rocks in the country. They can be subdivided into two main domains (Diamnti 2002): (1) diapiric evaporite rocks of Permian and Triassic age; and (2) subhorizontally lying evaporite rocks of Messinian age. The main karst areas in

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evaporite rocks of Albania are described below, and some cases of environmental degradation in these settings are outlined. Other minor areas of evaporites with restricted outcrops are also present in the country. The most important are in southern Albania, and namely in the Kurvelesh Mountains and in the Saranda region (Fig. 1). Kurvelesh, in particular, is a remarkable karst area, where many caves have already been explored and documented in carbonate rocks, whilst, to our knowledge, no explorations has been carried out in the evaporites.

Korab area Korab area is located in eastern Albania, at the boundary with Macedonia (Fig. 1), and nearby the town of Peshkopi. The geological setting is quite complex, with the presence of a Tertiary succession of carbonate rocks and ysch, intruded by older evaporites of PermianTriassic age

Fig. 1 Location map of karst areas in Albania. Explanation: 1 carbonate rocks, 2 evaporites. Minor areas where evaporites crop out, and that are mentioned in the text, are also shown

(Fig. 2). Evaporites make up a high mountain environment, where the topography is with the chain of Mali i Bardhe very rough, and the maximum elevation is 1,961 m a.s.l. According to the ofcial geological surveys, the stratigraphic thickness of the evaporites is on the order of 1,200 m (Instituti i Studimeve dhe i Projectimeve te Gjeologjise and Instituti Gjeologjik i Naftes 1993). They consist of stratied, white to light grey, gypsum, with local presence of metamorphosized limestones in outcrop. The evaporites at Korab give rise to very peculiar Range is delandscapes. In this regard, Mali i Bardhe nitely the most interesting zone, where several types of karst landforms may be appreciated. The Korab area has a great variety of surface karst landforms, including different types of dolines, karst valleys, and several examples of micro-karst features, but it does not to seem to be particularly interesting as regards the endokarst features. The area was explored in 1995 by an Italian speleological expedition (Bassi et al. 1999). Then, very few cavities were surveyed, largely clogged by the thick deposits of residual material and detritus, since the access is generally found at the bottom of dolines and karst depressions. However, the assessment of the potential for underground landforms in the area deserves more systematic explorations. Several outstanding landscape features are located in the Korab area (Qiriazi and Bego 1999), worth to be protected and exploited for tourism, but still not very well studied. They include the Bellova and Llixhave springs. The rst ones are located near the village of Bellova, at 620 m a.s.l. These springs occur at the contact point between the gypsum rocks and Eocene ysch deposits. The Llixhave springs are thermal, with water temperature close to 40C. Again regarding the surface hydrology, the Kacojth lake is located near the village of Kolonja. Likely originated as a solution doline, it is 100-m long, 60-m wide, and few meters deep. During the summer season the area of the lake is greatly reduced. Other peculiar landform is the so-called Shllinasi, near . It is an outcrop 900-m long, and 200the village of Sllove m high, made up of gypsum and halite. A similar feature is Gramws (pasqyra means mirror), and has this Pasqyrat e name because the rock strongly reects the sunlight. These features are the result of tectonic activity, formed as fault line scarps. Later on, development of erosion on the evaporite slopes produced remodeling of the scarp, up to the present situation. At the Korab area, several events of degradation have damaged the natural environments in the last decades. Unfortunately, very scarce information exist to document and quantitatively evaluate these phenomena, which include wildres, deforestation, land-use changes and the consequent increase in erosion, and loss of water quality. All of these detrimental effects, as it is well known from

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Environ Geol (2008) 53:967974 Fig. 2 Geological map of the region around Korab (after Instituti i Studimeve dhe i Projektimeve te Gjeologjise and Instituti Gjeologjik i Naftes 1993). Explanation: 1 Quaternary alluvial deposits, 2 Eocene ysch sediments: limestones and conglomerates, 3 Rudists limestones and dolostones (cretaceous), 4 Flysch sediments: sandstones (TitonianCenomanian), 5 Shales and conglomerates (Cretaceous), 6 Limestones (Middle TriassicLower Jurassic), 7 Limestones, shales, sands and conglomerates (Lower Triassic), 8 Conglomerate torbidites (Paleozoic), 9 Evaporites (PermianTriassic), 10 Conglomerates (Permian Triassic), 11 Volcanic rocks (OrdovicianDevonian), 12 Fault

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experiences in other karst areas (Holland 1994; Atalay 1999; Enne et al. 2002; Calder et al. 2004), may lead to the overall degradation of the evaporite karst environment, including loss of non recoverable landforms and resources.

Dumre area The Dumre district is located in central Albania (Fig. 1), south of the town of Elbasan. The outcrops of evaporite rocks cover some 210 km2, and reach 450 m a.s.l. in elevation. As at Korab area, the evaporites are of Permian Triassic age, and crop out in the core of a diapir located in a sector characterized by transtensional strike-slip tectonics (Aliaj 1999). Evaporite rocks intrude the Oligocene ysch formations along a NNE strike-slip fault. In the western ank of the Dumre dome the evaporites overthrust the Miocene and Pliocene molasses (Fig. 3). The Dumre district is among the areas affected by tectonic subsidence resulting from the neotectonic evolution of Albania, characterized by a general uplift that began in Pliocene times (Aliaj et al. 2001). The fault-controlled vertical movements that occurred since Middle Pleistocene produced the formation of graben structures in the country, many of which are at present occupied by lakes (Shkodra, Ohrid, Prespa) or plains (Korc a, Elbasan, Zadrima). In outcrop, the Dumre evaporitic sequence is made up of gypsum with calcareous and dolomitic breccias, dolomites, shales and volcanic tuff, and is highly tectonized. In the

subsurface, this formation,150600 m thick, consists of gypsum, anhydrites and rock salt, with scarce dolomitized limestones and dolostones, reaching an overall thickness of 5,0006,100 m (Diamnti 2002). The surface morphology at Dumre area is characterized by a number of typical exokarstic landforms, such as solution and collapse dolines, uvalas, karst valleys, poljes, where peculiar ecosystems have been developed. The most widespread landforms are dolines, which may reach a density of 1520 per square kilometer in the southern sector of the Dumre district. Dolines at Dumre area are of different origins, from solution dolines to cover and bedrock collapse dolines. Solution dolines are less in number, due to their more limited size, which makes it quite easy for man to cancel the karst landform. The more widespread collapse dolines may develop within the cover and also in the bedrock. In this latter case, collapse dolines are likely related to presence of underground caves. Dolines present variable morphologies like pan-shaped (regular shape, 1550 m across, 510 m deep), conical (in average, smaller; diameter of 30 m, and depth of 57 m), and cylindrical depressions. The conical and cylindrical dolines are the most signicant with respect to subsurface karst. In fact, conical dolines are particularly abundant along the ridges and the hillslopes, and commonly show swallow holes at their bottom. Cylindrical dolines, on the other hand, are located at the footslopes, often controlled by fractures of tectonic origin. They are produced by the collapse of rock cavity roofs.

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Fig. 4 Lake Merhoja is the deepest lake in the Dumre area, with over 60 m

Fig. 3 Geological map of the Dumre area (after Aliaj 1999). Explanation: 1 Quaternary deposits, 2 Pliocene molasses, 3 Middle Upper Miocene molasses, 4 OligoceneLower Miocene ysch deposits, 5 Upper TriassicEocene carbonates, 6 PermianLower Triassic evaporates, 7 thrust faults, 8 normal faults. The two letters A and B mark, respectively, location of the Belsh Lake and the Fierza village, mentioned in the text

The distribution of other karst depressions like the uvalas and poljes is strongly controlled by tectonics. Uvalas measure up to 300400 m across, and 3040 m deep (Kristo 2002), most of them resulting from the coalescence of several dolines. The poljes are concentrated in the central sector of Dumre, and are generally of limited length

(maximum length 50 m). Great part of the macro-karst depressions (uvalas, poljes and large non circular dolines) are elongated following the SWNE direction that is the ev et al. 1970). main structural grain in the area (Goc The most peculiar karstic landform at Dumre corresponds to a suite of lake. About 80 karst lakes with highly variable lengths and depths are present (Table 1). The lakes cover an overall area of 660 ha, which corresponds to 3% of the entire outcropping area of evaporites. Four lakes are longer than 1 km, with Seferai being the longest (over 2 km in length), whereas the deepest is Merhoja, which reaches 61 m in depth (Fig. 4). Most of the lakes are deeper than 10 m, and cover areas between 3 and 100 ha. Most of the lakes are circular in shape, but elliptical lakes (such as the Deges Lake) and irregular shapes are also present. The latter generally result from the coalescence of several dolines or uvalas. Even though located at different heights, with over 10 m of relief between the lowest and the highest lakes, they seem not to have any underground connection (Qiriazi et al. 1999; Qiriazi 2001). According to these authors, they are essentially fed by runoff and rainfall, which at Dumre has a typically Mediterranean regime. At the Belsh termo-pluviometric gauge, the average annual

Table 1 Morphometry of the main karst lakes in the evaporite karst area of Dumre (after Kristo 2002)

Lake name

Area (ha)

Average depth (m) 4.4 4.5 17.5 5.4 4

Max depth (m) 11.1 20.8 61 17.9 13.1 29

Length (km) 1.2 2.05 1.42 1.6 0.78 0.76

Width (km) 0.72 0.5 0.73 0.3 0.5 0.4 0.5

Lake perimeter (km) 6.3 5.9 3.6 3.8 2.2 2.4 1.4

C estija Seferai Merhoja Deges Paraska Belshi C eraga

98.6 87.5 65.5 37.4 27.4 26.9 18.8

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temperature is 15.2C, with daily minimum values in January (2.7C) and maximum in August (30.5C). Annual rainfall is 1058.3 mm, with November as the rainiest month (164.4 mm, corresponding to 15.5% of the mean annual precipitation). The karst landscape at Dumre is characterized by a very at topography (Kristo 1994), produced by the differential erosion of the easily erodible evaporites. Intense weathering and erosion determined the presence of a thick detritic cover mixed with residual deposits. The abundance of surcial deposits makes the identication and exploration of karst cavities difcult. The anthropogenic activities have also a signicant impact on the karst environment. At the present time the district is extensively cultivated with wheat, corn and tobacco representing the main products of the local agriculture (Grazhdani et al. 1999). In the past, the Dumre area was mostly devoted to pastures, but after the 50s, the land use moved decisively toward agriculture. These changes in the land use brought about several problems related to the extensive use of pesticides and herbicides, often favored by the lack of control by the authorities. This situation may be extremely harmful for the karst ecosystems (Gunay and Ekmekci 1997; Rejec Branceli 1998). At Dumre, many of the karst lakes have been exploited for irrigation without any restriction to the consequent detrimental effects on the biota. Their levels have been thus lowered below critical values, i.e., the biological minimum. Consequently, the natural lacustrine ecosystems have severely deteriorated, and the strong ecological stresses have led to the disappearance of many species, mostly shes (Qiriazi and Sala 2000). At Belsh Lake, named after the town at the lake rims, the water from the lake was used in the past, as a drinkable resource. The later development of the town, involving the discharge of liquid waste and chemicals directly into the lake, together with the intensive use of herbicides and pesticides for agriculture in the surrounding areas, resulted in heavy pollution, and degradation in the water quality (Selenica 1998). At the same time, the attempts to gain new lands for agriculture pushed the local farmers during the last decades to occupy and irrigate even the slopes with higher gradients. The resulting increase in the erosion rates have caused the rapid silting up of some lakes, nowadays obliterated, or reduced to palustrine areas. The raise in the sediment production has also been favored by deforestation of small tree and shrub vegetation during the 19701989 period. Only locally some reforestation was carried out. After the 1990s, however, farmers were again very active in deforesting the area, so that today only 4 ha are covered by wood. This occurred in an attempt to increase the amount of arable land, but, on the other hand, often resulted in strong acceleration of the erosional

processes (Haska et al. 2003), due to lack of maintenance of the lands, especially in those areas having the highest slope gradients. As far as we know, subsurface karst is not very developed at Dumre area. In general the caves are structurally controlled, developed close to the surface, of limited length mbit te and fossil. The most important caves are Shke , and the Sopi te Turbullt Cave, the cave at Gradishte steres Cave. In contrast to the fossil character of the Ge mainly known caves, evidence of active breakdown processes at Dumre is given by the frequent collapse sinkhole formation and subsidence phenomena (Aliaj et al. 2001). Many sinkholes formed during the last years. The most recent event occurred in January 1998, at Fierza village, where a 38-m deep and 8-m wide sinkhole originated in one night. In most cases, sinkholes are formed by the collapse of rock cavity roofs. When these features develop nearby human settlements, the local people generally tackle the problem by lling the sinkhole soon after its formation with solid materials. This is commonly followed, in the short or long-term, in the reactivation of the sinkholes, favored by the additional load exerted by the lling materials. It has been pointed out by Parise et al. (2004) that it would be highly desirable to intensify the knowledge on the karst systems developed in the PermianTriassic gypsum formations of Dumre district to gain a better understanding of the paleokarst, as well as to improve our knowledge on the recent karst process, aimed at correctly evaluating the potential hazards, as it has been carried out in other European countries (Gutierrez 1996; Cooper 2002; Guerrero et al. 2004). An understanding of the mechanisms of karst breakdown is crucial to sinkhole hazard assessment, prediction and mitigation in karst terrains (Klimchouk and Andrejchuk 2002). To assess this hazard, several factors should be properly analyzed, including the degree of karstication and the characteristics of the existing cavities. A speleogenetic approach is therefore fundamental for a correct understanding of the breakdown mechanisms acting in the area.

Kavaja area The city of Kavaja is a few tens of kilometers away south west from the capital Tirana, close to the Adriatic coast (Fig. 1), and to areas of high naturalistic and archaeological importance. The latter is specially testied by the remnants of Via Gnathia, the main route connecting the west to the Balkans in roman time (Edson 1951; Walbank 1985; Badellas and Melfos 1996; Fasolo 2001). Coastal zones of Albania are among the most vulnerable areas as regards degradation of the landscape because of

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the intense anthropogenic activities that started after the fall of the communist regime. Attempts to exploit the natural beauty of the coast and sea often resulted in negative results for the environment, and put at risk several Albanian natural resources. Messinian evaporites crop out at Kavaja, giving rise to a different landscape than at Korab and Dumre, with several karst features, including many caves, some of which have been explored and surveyed in the past by speleological expeditions from abroad. Evaporite rocks crop out along a narrow, NWSE elongated, strip, at the contact with Pliocene sands and clays (Fig. 5). They have been in the past extensively exploited for mining and quarrying: gypsum, alabaster, anhydrites and rock salt were extracted at several sites in the Kavaja area. The most interesting sector, as regards speleology, is the area around the village of Mengaj, where a well-developed

Fig. 5 Overall view of the Kavaja area, near Mengaj. This is the main outcropping area of the Messinian evaporites

karst landscape is characterized by a number of landforms such as kamenitza, karren, dolines, blind valleys. The Italian speleological expeditions carried out in 1995 by the Gruppo Speleologico Faentino explored and surveyed the main caves in the area, all with a prevailingly horizontal Kriminile ve development: the Mengaj Cave and Shpella e Cave (Bassi et al. 1999). The Mengaj Cave is the longest in the Kavaja district (280 m). Its entrance opens at the base of a small vegetated slope. An active stream ows at the cave oor. Kriminile ve Cave is sub-horizontal, with two Shpella e entrances (Fig. 6), at slightly different elevations. The cave, some 200 m-long, is very interesting as regards biospeleology, due to the presence of a bat colony, and other remarkable species. The aforementioned contact between the evaporites and the Pliocene detrital sediments control the distribution of the many springs present in the area. Kavaja area is thus particularly suited to conduct hydrogeological surveys in an evaporite karst environment, and to analyze the likely interrelationships between anthropogenic activities and loss of karst groundwater quality (White 2002; Jordana and Batista 2004). Quarrying activities have a dramatic impact on the karst landscape at Kavaja, including the partial or total destruction of caves (Fig. 7), the removal of the subcutaneous karst zone, and, eventually, the anti-aesthaetic anthropogenic landforms which may easily become illegal landlls of liquid and solid wastes (Gunn and Bailey 1993; Memon et al. 2002; Parise and Trocino 2006). In this district, the areas surrounding the village of Mengaj were intensively quarried during the 1990s, and used as gypsum and alabaster mining areas. No concern was given to the gypsum caves in the Messinian evaporites, many of which

Fig. 6 Map of the Shpella e ve Cave, in the Kavaja Kriminile district. The cave was explored and mapped by Italian cavers from the Gruppo Speleologico Faentino in 1998 (simplied after Bassi et al. 1999)

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Fig. 7 Image illustrating the severe degradation of the landscape in the Kavaja area

have been destroyed by the mining activity, together with surface karst landforms. Impact of quarrying and mining was therefore extremely severe at Kavaja, and the negative effects imposed on the natural karst landscape are still visible at several sites since no reclamation work has been carried out in the today-abandoned quarries.

karstic caves and lakes, even though the sites strictly related to karst have not received a specic class in this preliminary classication. A huge amount of work still needs to be done. In this sense, spreading the knowledge about evaporite karst areas of Albania is the rst step. The main aim of the present paper was to widen the so-far available information about these remarkable, and heavily threatened, areas in the Albanian karst. In particular, the role of caving explorations and surveys in providing documentation and information on some natural and/or human-induced processes occurring in the subsurface karst has to be stressed. Investigating extensive subsurface cave systems, and mapping the main morphological features related to breakdown processes, including those not yet manifested at the surface, may provide valuable information for the management of sinkhole hazard. As shown by Klimchouk and Andrejchuk (2002) in their study on the gypsum caves in Western Ukraine (a region where the ve longest known gypsum caves in the world are present), the determination of the degree of propagation of the breakdown structures toward the surface through the cover, allows assessing the related geohazard with a precision and certainty unachievable by the conventional engineering geology approaches (Klimchouk and Andrejchuk 2002).
rrez-SantAcknowledgments We are indebted to Francisco Gutie olalla and William White for their valuable suggestions and comments on the rst version of the manuscript.

Conclusions Many environmental problems, including geohazards and anthropogenic impacts, have been identied in the evaporite karst regions of Albania (Hanaj 1997; Peza et al. 1997; Shkupi and Muc o 1997). They include pollution of karstic water resources, and anthropogenic activities that result in the degradation of surface and subsurface karst features. Evaporite karst areas are even more susceptible than carbonate karst to these phenomena, and have been severely degraded by anthropogenic activities. Connectivity between surface and subsurface environments in karst allows any negative action, which is carried out at the surface to be transferred, with all of its potential danger, to the subsurface (Legrand 1984; Parise and Pascali 2003). In evaporite karst, due to higher dissolution rates, the problems are still greater. Near-surface fractured and karstied aquifers are particularly susceptible to pollution, with severe consequences for the groundwater quality (White 2002; Drangert and Cronin 2004; Foster and Chilton 2004). Furthermore, in coastal areas the possibility of seawater intrusion, related to tourist exploitation and over abstraction of groundwater, has also to be considered. Recognition of the importance of karst environments, and the need to protect and safeguard them, is a slow process that is being appreciated only in recent years in Albania. For example, the preliminary inventory of geological sites of the country (Serjani et al. 1997) includes

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