Special issue
Special Issue of Vadose Zone Journal
Solicitation of New Manuscripts
Soil‐mediated drivers of coupled biogeochemical and hydrological processes across scales
Guest Editors:
Michael H. Young, University of Texas at Austin
Harry Vereecken, Forschungszentrum Juelich
Peter A. Troch, University of Arizona
Nicolas Brüggerman, Forschungszentrum Juelich
Scope and Objective:
This scope of this special issue follows the general approach taken from an AGU Chapman conference held in Tucson, Arizona on 21‐24 Oct 2013, entitled “Soil‐mediated drivers of coupled biogeochemical and hydrological processes across scales.” More than 115 presentations were given over three days, plus several breakout sessions and reports provided to the attendees. The Chapman conference was organized to review and discuss new strategies to observe and understand processes and drivers in the biogeosphere, particularly those related to coupled biogeochemical and hydrological
processes in terrestrial systems. The vadose zone was the target of these discussions. The topics presented at the meeting included transport and exchange processes of organic and gaseous compounds across the soil‐water and soil‐plant interfaces, monitoring strategies of soil‐mediated
processes and drivers from the local to the catchment scale, and the impact of soil formation and functions on ecosystem services.
The topics of this special issue will parallel those of the Chapman conference, but with attention paid to pursuing three main conclusions. First, although the topics listed above are connected by soil biogeochemical processes, many biologically‐driven functions are not fully incorporated into either conceptual or modeling approaches—how can they be better incorporated? We seek papers that highlight these approaches. Second, how can isotopic fractionation processes in CO2 exchange, evapotranspiration and shallow soil‐water exchange inform us about mass exchange at different scales and what cutting‐edge technological monitoring developments are ready to measure these processes. And, third, how can we use our understanding of these biogeochemical processes and the data we collect to communicate, the importance of the vadose zone and value of ecosystem services?
We encourage manuscripts from the general scientific community, as well as the attendees of the Chapman conference.
Schedule:
- August 1, 2014: Call for papers
- December 1, 2014: Deadline for submittal of first round of papers
- February 1, 2015: Completion of first round of reviews
- April 1, 2015: Completion of second round of reviews and selection of papers
- June/July 2015: Publication of special issue