Dry Karst Valley Landscape

This is a landform that consists of dry or intermittent river valleys in karst areas. They are former surface drainage channels that became dry valleys after the development of a deeper drainage system due to lowering of the erosional surface upon crustal uplift or climate change. The bottom of a dry karst valley is flat, usually covered with loose deposits and often associated with dolines and sinkholes. Dry karst valleys are widely developed in the semi-arid karst valley region in northern China. In some dry karst valleys in Shanxi Province, sinkholes and deep leakage grooves have formed along fault zones. The drainage systems in dry karst valleys are better developed, but other than the underground runoff with high water transmissibility, subterranean rivers such as those in the south fail to develop. For example, the average flow rate of the Hekou-Zhitou section of the Fenhe River is 2.88 m³/s, accounting for 17.8% of the surface runoff, whereas the flow rate of the Wangqiao...