Soil hydrological processes (SHP) support ecosystems, modulate the impact of climate change on terrestrial systems and control feedback mechanisms between water, energy biogeochemical cycles. However, land-use changes extreme events are increasingly impacting these processes. In this Review, we describe SHP across scales examine their links with soil properties, ecosystem climate. structure inf...

Drylands throughout the world have always undergone periods of degradation due to naturally-occurring fluctuations in climate. However, over the past century, the human population in drylands has grown exponentially and the resulting pressures on the landscape have exacerbated various desertification processes, particularly in Africa. The degradation of drylands has led to changes in local, reg...

Gap models have a rich history of being used to simulate individual tree interactions that impact species diversity and patterns of forest succession. Questions arise, however, as to whether these same models can be used to study the response of forest structure and composition under a changing climate. In contrast to many process-based models, gap models have traditionally been based on rather...

655 Fresh water is under pressure in the humid tropics from population growth, land use and climate change, all of which are influenced by humans. These pressures are likely to have profound consequences. Here we present a research vision for the humid tropics as an outcome of a community workshop held in Hawaii in March 2011. This report includes various perspectives from the international sci...

Soil aeolian erodibility is the efficiency with which soil produces dust for a given meteorological forcing. Quantifying soil erodibility is crucial for forecasting dust events and the climatological distribution and forcing of dust. We use long term station observations and satellite indices of mineral dust to ascertain the role of regional topography, geomorphology, and hydrology in controlli...

Research on the coupling of soil, vegetation, and hydrological processes is not only a research hotspot in disciplines such as pedology, ecohydrology Earth system science but also important for achieving sustainable development. However, scientists from different usually study mechanism soil-vegetation-hydrological at very space time scales, mechanistic connections between scales are quite few....

soil is one of the most important natural resources covering a large area of the land surface. soil plays a vital role in biosphere processes, such as energy balance, hydrology, biochemistry, and biological productivity. it supports plants that supply foods, fibers, drugs, and some other human needs. conversely, desert regions include about one third of earth lands and these regions have increa...