Cave drip water electrical conductivity data from Cueva de Asiul, Northern Spain (2010 -2014) with supporting hydrological and external climate datasets. (NERC studentship grant NE/I527953/1)

The data set provides climate and cave monitoring data from Cueva de Asiul, Cantabria, northern Spain. This data was initially presented in graphical form in Smith et al., (2015) - Drip water Electrical Conductivity as an indicator of cave ventilation at the event scale. Science of the Total Environment, 532, 517-527. All data was collected from within the cave or within a 1km radius of the cave site (43°19'0"N, 3°35'28"W) using instrumentation set up as part of a PhD project running between January 2010 and January 2014. The data set includes high resolution event based monitoring data for a range of climatic parameters - cave and external temperature, rainfall amount, soil pCO2 cave air pCO2 concentration, cave drip water calcium saturation, drip water electrical conductivity and cave air pressure. This data was analysed at Lancaster University, UK or at the NERC isotope geosciences laboratory, British Geological Survey, UK. Any missing data from this 4 year period is a result of instrument malfunction and is clearly explained within the above cited paper. The electrical conductivity component of the data set offers the first data set of this type form any cave system, using a submerged CTD Diver probe and novel piston flow housing. The rest of the data constitute a part of a larger cave monitoring data set produced during the project using a number of standard automated cave monitoring devices. When combined this data leads us to conclude that cave drip water electrical conductivity is driven primarily by changes in cave air pCO2 at Cueva de Asiul and therefore responds to cave ventilation dynamics, rather than by changes in karst water residence time. Without such extremely high resolution monitoring the impact of cave ventilation on event based changes in drip water electrical conductivity would not have been established for this site. This data set should be of interest to anyone studying similar cave sites, interested in the role of electrical conductivity as a monitoring tool within caves and cave ventilation on speleothem growth dynamics. The data set was collected by members of Lancaster University and the Matienzo caving expedition as part of NERC studentship grant NE/I527953/1. All cave monitoring was undertaken with kind permission from Gobierno de Cantabria, Cultura.