The Impact of Soil Management on the Physical and Hydraulic Properties of the Soil

Dear Colleagues,

Conserving water resources is a current challenge that will become increasingly urgent in future years due to climate change. It is expected that the arid and semi-arid areas of the globe will be particularly affected by changing water availability. Agronomic practices and soil treatments including, for example, tillage, crop rotation, conservation agriculture, crop residue management, soil amendment, and so on should be applied rationally to enable improvements in water storage and carbon content in the soil, preservation (or improvement) of soil fertility and mitigation of climate changes.

This Special Issue aims to investigate the effects of soil management practices on the physical and hydraulic properties of the soil, with particular interest in the improvement of soil functionality in arid and semi-arid areas. Therefore, research linking agronomy and soil hydrology to optimize water management in agriculture will be welcomed.

Hydrology and water resources should be prevalent aspects of submitted investigations. Submissions will address one or more of the following issues, with closely related topics also welcome:

• Ecohydrology processes and their relationships with drought, aridity, and water scarcity;
• Impact of hydrology changes on ecosystem degradation;
• Effects of land or soil use changes on components of the hydrological cycle (runoff, recharge, etc.);
• Modelling applications for predicting climate or soil-land use change effects on water availability;
• Soil use and management of arid and semi-arid environments;
• Soil physical and hydraulic property changes in arid and semi-arid environments;
• Soil properties governing hydrological processes;
• Innovative methods and technologies for monitoring ecological, hydrological and soil processes;
• Relationships between microflora and microfauna and physical and hydraulic indicators of the soil;
• Impact of biological crusts on soil properties;
• Role of hydraulic redistribution in water availability and ecosystem function;
• Effects of treated wastewater usage on soil hydraulic properties;
• Theoretical, methodological and case studies as well as review papers are welcome for submission.

Dr. Mirko Castellini
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• ecohydrology
• sustainable agriculture
• conservation agriculture
• soil hydrology
• soil degradation
• water conservation
• hydrological processes
• arid and semi-arid areas