5 Conclusions
It is well known that drought has a significant impact on karst dissolution. However, it is not clear how much karst dissolution will be lost under the influence of different intensity droughts. With the help of field control comparative experiments, we provide relatively detailed results for the first time to answer the question. We clearly know the karst dissolution loss caused by different intensity droughts for different land types and in different regions through the investigation. Although there may be some limitations in the study, the experiment results confirmed that the drought has a considerable impact on karst dissolution from the quantity point of view.
Controls of mechanism analysis suggest that the effect of drought on karst dissolution is mainly achieved by reducing soil water. Specifically, drought leads to a decrease of precipitation and, in turn, reduces the soil water, weakens the karst dissolution process, and finally causes the loss of karst dissolution. This results very clearly implies an essential role of precipitation and soil water on the karst dissolution. Previous studies have also demonstrated this argument.