The soil, vegetation and the lower atmosphere system is characterized by complex patterns, structures and processes that act at various time and space scales. While the exchange of energy, water and carbon is continuous between the different compartments, the pertinent fluxes are strongly heterogeneous and variable in space and time. Therefore, the quantitative prediction of the systems’ behavior constitutes a major challenge to scientists and public policymakers.
Explicit consideration of patterns and structure could lead to general methodologies to better understand and predict interactions of the soil-vegetation-atmosphere system. We encourage submissions from the field of soil and plant science, remote sensing, hydrology, meteorology and mathematics studying the soil-vegetation atmosphere system over a wide range of spatiotemporal scales using experimental and/or modeling techniques. We solicit contributions from scientists of all Earth sciences disciplines dealing with the soil-vegetation-atmosphere system from the micro to the meso-scale.
We are particularly interested in studies applying novel experimental and theoretical approaches to characterize patterns and structures of e.g., the pore space, physiochemical properties, vegetation and soil cover, surface-subsurface hydrologic processes, and processes of the atmospheric boundary layer, which influence interactions and mass/momentum/energy fluxes of the soil-vegetation-atmosphere system. Further, we also encourage contributions focusing on the characterization of spatial or temporal patterns using geostatistical methods.