Soil water repellency has been long considered a marginal problem. However, at present, it has become clear that this property is much more common than suspected only a few years ago. It has been reported for many soils, land uses and climate areas of the world, and is a common characteristic of many fire-affected soils. Some of the consequences of soil water repellency are reduced soil infiltration rates, enhanced overland flow, soil erosion rates, and non uniform wetting fronts with fingered flow. Because of its importance, soil water repellency has attracted the interest of the scientific community during the last decades. Current techniques for the assessment of soil water repellency range from molecule-scales to remote sensing approaches at the landscape-scale. But despite all research, there is still a great lack of knowledge of the functioning and assessment of water-repellent soils and their hydrological and erosive responses. The spatial and temporal changes in the occurrence and severity of water repellency at different scales need to be more deeply explained and integrated in modelling approaches.
Therefore, the objective of this session is to put in common recent research and facilitate international scientific exchange for a better knowledge of water-repellent soils and addressing key research gaps. Contributors are invited to discuss the origin and evaluation of soil water repellency, its impact on the physical and hydrological soil properties, soil erosion, and the effect of wildfires as well as research into amelioration techniques and strategies for restoration of arable soils or natural areas.