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Modelling, Monitoring and Assessment of Soil Hydrology and Ecological Processes

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Soil and Water".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 January 2026 | Viewed by 208

Special Issue Editors

School of Land Engineering, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710054, China
Interests: ecological remote sensing; ecological restoration; spatial analysis and modeling; hydrologi-cal process ; water and soil conservation

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Guest Editor
School of Land Engineering, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710054, China
Interests: hydrological processes in arid areas; vegetation water consumption; evapotranspira-tion; soil water; groundwater

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue focuses on the simulation, monitoring, and assessment research of soil hydrology and ecological processes. Automated monitoring, multi-element remote sensing, interpretation by new synthetic aperture radar satellites, big data analysis, machine learning, and other emerging technologies are used to measure and calculate the key variables of soil hydrology to improve the accuracy of soil moisture monitoring. Through comprehensive methods, such as multi-source data fusion, physical processes simulation, and deep learning, the soil hydrology processes at different spatiotemporal scales are studied, and the mechanism connections among different scales are explored. In addition, the influence of soil moisture changes on the terrestrial hydrological ecosystem are clarified and the coupling mechanism of "soil–vegetation–hydrology" are analyzed. The connections between soil hydrology, ecological processes, and human activities are analyzed, and the influence of ecological processes on climate and land use changes, etc. are revealed. This Special Issue aims to establish a research paradigm for the simulation, monitoring, and assessment of hydrology-ecological processes, providing scientific basis and decision support for improving the quality of ecosystems and ensuring the sustainable utilization of water resources.

The content of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, soil moisture monitoring technology, inversion methods and products by satellite remote sensing and unmanned aerial vehicle, multi-source data fusion and assimilation technology of soil moisture, application of machine learning in the study of soil hydrology processes, simulation of land surface hydrology processes, the influence mechanism of soil moisture changes on ecosystems, simulation, prediction, and evaluation of hydrology ecological processes under different climate scenarios, etc.

Dr. Lei Han
Dr. Ming Zhao
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • multi-source remote sensing
  • spatial analysis and modeling
  • soil moisture
  • vegetation ecology
  • multiple scale
  • climate change
  • land use

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

18 pages, 4607 KiB  
Article
Xylem Hydraulic Characteristics and Soil Water Content Drive Drought Sensitivity Differences in Afforestation Species
by Ruimin He, Zhenguo Xing, Mingzhe Lei, Guanjie Li, Xiaoqing Liu, Jie Fang, Da Lei and Xin Zou
Water 2025, 17(16), 2445; https://doi.org/10.3390/w17162445 - 19 Aug 2025
Abstract
Drought is a critical factor influencing the distribution of forest species in both present and future global terrestrial ecosystems. Therefore, to investigate the sensitivity of typical afforestation tree species on the Loess Plateau to drought and its influencing factors, we conducted field experiments [...] Read more.
Drought is a critical factor influencing the distribution of forest species in both present and future global terrestrial ecosystems. Therefore, to investigate the sensitivity of typical afforestation tree species on the Loess Plateau to drought and its influencing factors, we conducted field experiments to measure the sap flow, soil moisture content, fine root density, leaf water potential, and xylem hydraulic characteristics of three deciduous trees: apple (Malus domestica), black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), and jujube (Ziziphus jujube). We found that the canopy conductance (Gc) of black locust and apple trees was highly sensitive to VPD variations. Their transpiration (T) was also sensitive to soil moisture variation, especially for black locust. In contrast, the Gc and T sensitivity of jujube trees was low. The differences in their drought sensitivities can primarily be attributed to variations in xylem hydraulic conductivity and embolism vulnerability. Our results demonstrate that both mature black locust and apple trees on the Loess Plateau have strong drought sensitivity, especially black locust. Therefore, alterations in precipitation patterns driven by climate change may significantly influence the community distribution of black locusts trees on the Loess Plateau. Full article
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