To discriminate the correlation between normal temperature groundwater and geothermal water,by analyzing the characteristics and patterns of spatial distribution of aquifer/thermal reservoir,isotopic dating,hydrogeochemical field,hydrodynamic field and temperature field,the evolution process and driving mechanism of karst groundwater flow system in Baotu spring catchment from shallow to middle and to deep circulation subsystems,i.e.,from cold springs to hot springs,are revealed.Driven by the gravitational potential energy difference,the groundwater flows from the open groundwater flow system in the upper reaches to the semi-open groundwater flow system in the middle reaches along the Jinan karst aquifer system.A small part of groundwater passes through from the deep or bypasses the Jinan gabbro mass,and migrates to the downstream along the fissure karst channel,forming a weakly open geothermal water flow system.Such five sources of heat accumulation drive normal temperature groundwater of 14-18℃ to be heated into geothermal water of 33-95 ℃ as the high terrestrial heat flux accumulation,the belt shaped convective thermal accumulation in the deep fault zone or intrusive rock-limestone contact zone,the high thermal conductivity diffluence accumulation in the uplift area,theheat preservation accumulation by low thermal conductivity cap rock,and the conductive-convective thermal accumulation by deep groundwater circulation.