Announcements

Soil Water Infiltration Global (SWIG) Database—an interactive map platform seeks for data submission

We are pleased to announce an important update to the Soil Water Infiltration Global (SWIG) Database—an interactive map platform where researchers can view, select, and download infiltration measurements from around the world. You can explore the SWIG v2 Interactive Map here: When you open the map, you’ll see a pop-up in the top-left corner: “𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮: 𝘂𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄” where you can start the uploading process

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. 

Root-Zone Water-Storage Capacity and Uncertainty: An Intrinsic Factor Affecting Agroecosystem resilience to Drought

Mapping ecosystem function indicators helps identify areas susceptible to drought, heat stress, and reduced agricultural production. This information can be used to prioritize areas for targeted interventions to tackle adverse climatic conditions and changes in land use. Root-zone water-storage capacity (S_R) is a commonly used variable of agroecosystem functioning, representing the maximum value of water stored within the root zone and accessible to vegetation for its productive growth. Mapping S_R over large spatial scales is only feasible through an oversimplification of real-world conditions. Under such circumstances, we propose to resort to soil-hydraulic-energy indices, namely the integral mean water capacity (IMWC) and the integral energy (IE) and an effective root-zone depth (z_R). Accordingly, a more efficient and environmentally sensitive, albeit still simplistic, determination of the root-zone water-storage capacity is computed as S_R,IMWC = z_R × IMWC, and validated against soil moisture measurements carried out along a transect. Subsequently, the S_R,IMWC indicator was mapped in Campania, a 13,700 km² region in southern Italy. This study also addressed the issue of the propagation of epistemic uncertainty in input soil hydraulic parameters to the output response variable IMWC. This was accomplished using a Monte Carlo simulation technique that generated several equiprobable stochastic realizations from the multivariate set of data inputs. Finally, we assessed the potential utility of the integral capacity energy (ICE) composite indicator, computed as the ratio IMWC/IE in %, as a scoring parameter to identify Priority Intervention Areas (PIAs) where resilience to environmental challenges, including water scarcity, drought events, and post-fire conditions, could be enhanced. More information can be found here.

Effects of different climatic conditions on soil water storage patterns

Understanding the role of soil structure at large scales

- Please tell us briefly about yourself and your research interest.

I’m currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris (France). I studied physics at the University of Warsaw (Poland) and did my PhD at the University of Vienna (Austria), where I worked on numerical and pen-and-paper modeling of quantum physics experiments. Motivated by climate change, I switched to land surface modeling after my PhD. I now work with ORCHIDEE, which is the land component of the IPSL-CM Earth system model. There, I aim to improve the representations of soil water, heat, and carbon flows by understanding and accounting for the effects soil structure on these flows. Among other things, I look into the usefullness of the soil pore size distribution as a determinant of soil transport properties.

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

Soil is a natural destination for a physicist interested in land surface modeling, since one could think it should lend itself to a mechanistic description more readily than; e.g., vegetation. The large amount of carbon stored in the soils and the risk that it could be released to the atmosphere as a result of climate feedbacks provided additional motivation.

I think I learned about ISMC from a colleague who participated in the Mathematics of Soils working group or seminars.

 -Can you share with us your current research focus?

My current focus is on improving the representations of soil water, heat, and carbon flows in land surface models by understanding and accounting for the effects soil structure on these flows. I am also working on improving the parametrization of soil hydraulic properties of fine soils in ORCHIDEE, since the currently used parametrizations cause numerical issues. We are also starting to work on consistent parametrization of soil hydraulic and thermal properties, with a focus on the role of soil organic carbon content.

 - Please tell us briefly how your research could contribute to ISMC Science Panel’s activities? Or the other way around, how do you wish ISMC science panels help/support your research activities?

I am not very up to date on ISMC Science Panels’s activities, so it is hard to tell right now. I do plan to participate in the new working groups that might start following the meeting in Reading.

- 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 the main resource young scientists need are collaborations. Perhaps ISMC could help foster these by having a “water cooler” working group: an informal space where anybody can come to talk about a scientific problem they’re facing. The group would offer advice and encouragement, and in some cases, new collaborations could form around problems multiple people are drawn to.