DIFFUSE FLOW SEPARATION WITHIN KARST UNDERGROUND RIVER AT NGRENENG CAVE
Diffuse flow is a dependable flow to recharge karst underground river within the dry season. Thisresearch is conducted at Ngreneng Cave, which is famous as the leakage tributary of Bribin River, themost important underground river in Gunungsewu karst area, Central Java. The objective of this researchis to separate the karst flow components at Ngreneng Cave, in order to acknowledge the percentage ofdiffuse flow during the period of measurement. A water level data logger is installed during one yearperiod to understand the variation of water level within dry and wet season. Furthermore, to define StageDischarge Rating Curve, several discharge measurement is conducted within minimum, average andmaximum discharge condition. Afterwards, the diffuse flow separation from its total flow is conducted byusing automated base flow separation by digital filtering. The digital filtering values is acquired from theanalysis of recession constant value in the occurrence of flood events in a year observation and related tothe value of the base flow maximum indices (BFI) of karst aquifer. The result shows that during one yearobservation, Ngreneng Cave experiences 68 times of flooding, with digital filtering value of 0.992. Ingeneral, the monthly estimation of the diffuse flow percentage is very close to 80%, whereas it decreasesto 41-59% during flood events.