This session encompasses natural and cultural soil processes mediating landscape evolution and ecosystem functions. Current research frontiers will be discussed with regard to soil development over space and time (pedogenesis, polygenetic soils, soil biogeochemistry, landscape and soil evolution models), anthropogenic influences and soil functions (e.g., regulating the water cycle, providing ecosystem services). This includes to evaluate the role of soils and palaeosols as archives of geo-ecological, palaeo-climatological and geo-archaeological change. The session scope spans over a wide range from small-scale (e.g., micromorphology) to landscape scale and experimental (e.g., geochronology) to field-based study designs. Although all climatic zones are considered we encourage contributions that focus on cold regions and permafrost soil change under climate change. Some of these areas have experienced above-average warming, and understanding soil change is key to the analysis of altered terrestrial ecosystem dynamics.
In doing so we offer new insights into the complex relationships between landscape evolution, climate change, and human activity, and contribute to the key challenges of the 21st century regarding resilience and sustainability of soil ecosystems in the Anthropocene. This sessions will be of interest to researchers working in a wide range of interdisciplinary areas including pedology, geology, geoarchaeology, archaeology, environmental history, soil modelling, micromorphology, Quaternary sciences, e.g. paleoclimatology, geomorphology, geochronology, sedimentology, landscape ecology, planning and land management.