Soil structure and its stability are important aspects of soil health as they regulate key soil physical, chemical, and biological functions. This includes water retention, hydraulic conductivity and gaseous transport, nutrient cycling, redox dynamics, erosion resistance, and root penetration. The arrangement and connectivity of pores, minerals, and organic matter govern the exchange of water, gases, and solutes within soils and provide habitat for soil biota, which in turn actively modify and engineer the pore network. These interactions create dynamic feedbacks between soil structure and ecosystem functioning.

Soil structure evolves continuously across spatial and temporal scales through the action of roots, soil organisms, land management, and abiotic drivers such as wetting and drying cycles. These processes alter pore architecture and aggregate organization, thereby modifying soil properties and functions over time. Recent advances in imaging, geophysical methods, experimental approaches, and process-based modelling have substantially improved our ability to observe and quantify these dynamics. Nevertheless, many of the mechanisms linking soil structure development, degradation, resilience, and soil functioning remain poorly understood.

Understanding the processes and feedbacks governing soil structure dynamics is essential for developing climate-smart and resilient soil management strategies. In this session, we invite contributions on the formation, stabilization, degradation, and evolution of soil structure and its associated functions across all spatial and temporal scales. We particularly encourage contributions integrating complementary measurement techniques (e.g., geophysics, digital image correlation, X-ray CT), novel modelling concepts, or approaches that bridge scales.

Special focus lies on:
• feedbacks between soil structure dynamics and soil biology,
• effects of land use and management on soil structural development and associated soil functions,
• biological, hydrological, and mechanical processes shaping pore architecture and structural resilience,
• integration of complementary measurement techniques and modelling approaches across scales.