Announcements

15^th International Conference on Electromagnetic Wave Interaction with Water and Moisture

The biannual meeting of ISEMA will take place from 29^th – 30^th September in London, UK

Topics are:

• Theory and application of dielectric mixing formulas
• Dielectric properties of water in heterogeneous material, including biological substances
  and tissues
• Computational methods of electromagnetic wave propagation in dispersive and lossy
  dielectrics
• Electromagnetic sensors in time and frequency domain for moisture content
  determination
• Moisture content determination and monitoring in soil, snow, agricultural materials, waste
  disposals, and other materials
• Progress in measurement instrumentation, data processing, and standardization
• Dielectric spectroscopy and applications
• Remote sensing and monitoring of Earth´s water
• Current and future applications in civil engineering, agriculture, medicine, industry, and 
  environmental protection
• Manipulating water – Electromagnetic interactions, electrowetting

Registration is now open

New model added to the ISMC model portal: VSoil modelling platform

The platform aims at providing a mean for sharing and coupling modelling tools developed in various scientific fields of interest for soil sciences. It also aims at facilitating the communication and collaboration between people with various scientific backgrounds. The VSoil platform is based on the idea that we can define different biological, physical and chemical processes taking place in soils. Lists of input and output variables are needed and produced by each of these processes. For any process, several representations can be available. We call these representations: modules. The modules correspond to various modellings, or mathematical representations, or numerical solutions, etc. Focus has been made on graphical interfaces to facilitate coupling of models. More information can be found here.

Featured Paper

Do you want your paper featured?

Please share your recent paper if you want to be featured in the ISMC newsletter. With your contributions, we will select one paper to be featured in every newsletter. Submission can be done here. 

Analytical model for bare soil evaporation dynamics following wetting with concurrent internal drainage

Under natural conditions, infiltrated rainwater redistributed into the soil profile, becomes partially sheltered from surface evaporative losses relative to undrained wet surfaces. Surface evaporation rates and internal drainage dynamics are both sensitive to soil hydraulic properties and initial soil hydration state. We report a novel analytical framework for quantifying surface evaporation rates with concurrent internal drainage, considering soil properties and dynamic surface evaporation resistance. Interplay among soil hydraulic properties, boundary conditions, and atmospheric demand result in nonlinear relationships between cumulative evaporative losses and initial water content. The new analytical solution shows good agreement with laboratory column experiments and literature data. Results highlight the role of soil texture on evaporative losses and the nonlinear effects of initial wetness on evaporation. The largest evaporative losses per rainfall amount are predicted for small rainfall events over initially dry loamy soils due to the detention of infiltrated rainwater near the surface for soils with large porosity and low hydraulic conductivity. The analytical framework uses readily available parameters hence can be implemented in land surface models to explicitly consider how soil properties and rainfall event size affect surface evaporation dynamics. More information can be found here.

Saturated hydraulic conductivity and steady-state infiltration rate database for Brazilian soils

Soil saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) and steady-state infiltration rate (SSIR) are essential and necessary soil properties for different geoscience applications. Values of these hydraulic properties for the Brazilian territory are difficult to access and are dispersed in research efforts carried out around the country. This study developed an easy-to-manipulate, freely accessible database of soil saturated hydraulic conductivity, comprising field and laboratory analyses, and steady-state infiltration rates for Brazilian soils. This database was named Ksat-SSIR-DB. One analysis of the Ksat-SSIR-DB aimed to evaluate its coverage in Brazilian territory and in different soil groups. Average values of these hydraulic properties were also presented for textural classes, with values compared to those reported in international literature, and for other groupings, such as soil class, land use class, and porosity class. The variability of Ksat data in these groupings and in their combinations were also analyzed. The Ksat-SSIR-DB showed broad national coverage, comprising a total of 2,579 records, corresponding to 409 sampling sites, with Ksat and/or SSIR data and other associated soil information. A significant difference was observed between Ksat values for the vast majority of Brazilian clayey and very clayey soils compared to soils from the same textural groups from temperate regions. The two groupings that presented the lowest variability in terms of Ksat standard deviation values were the combination of textural classes with soil classes at the second category level of SiBCS (Brazilian Soil Classification System), and porosity classes with soil classes at the second category level of SiBCS. The Ksat-SSIR-DB has enormous potential for developing and testing Ksat pedotransfer functions in Brazilian soils, serving as a reference source for different geoenvironmental applications and, in particular, for modeling land surface processes. More information can be found here.

Featured Soil Modeler (Csilla Farkas)

Dynamic modelling of soil-plant interactions

Csilla Farkas is a hydrologist working as a research professor at the Division for Environment and Natural Resources of the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO) in Ås, Norway. She studied hydrology at the Russian State Hydrometeorological University in St. Petersburg, Russia, and completed her PhD in Earth Sciences at the Faculty of Applied Geology at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. She has been working as a researcher at the Institute for Soil Sciences and Agrochemistry of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (TAKI HUN-REN at present) for over two decades, focusing on the spatio-temporal variability of soil properties and on modelling the impact of land use and soil tillage systems on soil hydrological processes under changing conditions. In 2013, she moved to Norway and has since been working at NIBIO, where her research assesses the impacts of climate change, land use, and soil management systems on the water regime and water quality at field and catchment scales.

- Please tell us briefly about yourself and your research interest

During my university years, I studied classical surface hydrology and water transport modelling at catchment and regional scales. These models at that time fully neglected processes in the unsaturated zone. When I started working at the Soil Institute (TAKI), the focus was given to soil processes within the unsaturated zone. This “spatial” shift directed my attention towards the spatio-temporal variability of soil properties and the challenges of modelling their impacts on soil water and nutrient transport. Upon beginning my new position at NIBIO in Norway, I got engaged in projects centered on catchment-scale modelling of water quantity and quality under changing conditions and assessed the impacts of various adaptation strategies. Thus, my primary research interest lies in bridging the scales between classical catchment-based hydrology and soil hydrology, as well as tackling the challenges of accurately representing soils and soil processes in catchment-scale models to ensure reliable assessments at the field scale.

-  How did you first become interested in soil modelling and learn about ISMC?

I was introduced to soil modelling during my PhD studies at the Soil Institute in Hungary (TAKI). I completed a PhD course in Uppsala on the Soil & Soil-N models (predecessors of COUP) and spent one semester in Wageningen under the supervision of Jos van Dam, where I became acquainted with the SWAP model. In my PhD thesis, I focused on both the spatial and temporal variability of soil properties in soil modelling. The scaling theory and the scaling of soil hydraulic properties incorporated in the SWAP model at that time provided an excellent foundation for this study. One of the most significant findings was the substantial improvement in the soil hydrological calibration of the SWAP model for heavily tilled soils when using temporally variable soil hydraulic properties.
I learned about ISMC from the current co-chairs through their extensive work on enhancing cooperation between soil modelers worldwide. I found the website and newsletters very interesting and useful for my work.

-Can you share with us your current research focus? And, please tell us briefly how your research could contribute to ISMC Science Panel’s activities

Most of the projects I am currently working on involve exploring the trade-offs between environmental safety and food security under present and future climate conditions. One of the biggest challenges is implementing and, where possible, verifying the impact of different adaptation strategies or nature-based solutions on soil health and (sub)surface water quality. These projects have become highly multidisciplinary, necessitating the integration of modelling work with stakeholder communication, economic assessments, and social acceptance of the tested and proposed solutions. I believe that the policy briefs, modelling protocols, and the rSWAP package, developed within the EU-financed OPTAIN and Nordbalt-Ecosafe projects, to which I am contributing, could be valuable for the activities of ISMC.

-Please tell us how can ISMC help you advance in your career?

The metadata (“Data Portal”) and “Data Portal” developed by the ISMC community are invaluable resources for modelling work in general and supports model selection for a specific task. I believe ISMC offers an excellent platform for networking and communication, which can significantly contribute to forming research teams for developing joint scientific proposals in the future. I could picture having a similar meta-repository for useful scripts, and for example pedotransfer functions, because sometimes we either don’t know about them, or the general literature can get confusing.
 

- What resources or skills would you recommend that early career members of ISMC should acquire? And how can ISMC help and support early career members in this regard?

I think network building and receiving feedback and advice on their work are crucial for early career scientists. The opportunity to get acquainted with different schools and modelling teams can broaden their scientific horizons. By organizing workshops and lecture series that highlight particular topics, as well as providing discussion platforms, ISMC can offer strong support to young researchers, facilitating their integration into the international scientific community.