Identification and Quantification of Water Flow and Solute Transport Processes in Agricultural, Natural and Artificial Hillslopes

Dear Colleagues,

Hillslope landscapes are well known to present challenges for estimating the dynamics of vadose zone processes due to the variety of transport-related processes that are present, such as surface runoff; vertical flow; erosion; subsurface preferential flow; non-linear chemical behavior affected by soil structure, slope, and layering; evapotranspiration; erosion; slope stability etc. These processes are present in agricultural, natural or human-affected (i.e., artificial) hillslopes, and the various slope shapes (e.g., concave, convex) have a major impact on these processes. The quantification of hillslope processes is still very challenging, and its success is directly linked to the presence of topsoil and subsoil layer heterogeneity as well as the present plant species. These complex interactions result in nonuniform water flow and solute transport processes which cannot be easily assessed, even with sophisticated analytical or numerical methods.

The topic of the proposed Special Issue is left intentionally broad, as we would like to invite researchers from various disciplines (e.g., agronomy, geology and mining, environmental engineering, hydrology, biogeochemistry) to submit their findings or prepare review papers focusing on the challenge of water flow and solute transport quantification in various hillslope landforms in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum.

We strongly encourage the inclusion of both known and novel methodological approaches. These may include but are not limited to in situ and controlled conditions experiments; as well as analytical, modelling, conceptual and monitoring studies at various scales.

It is our intention to collate state-of-the-art studies and further improve our understanding of complex processes occurring in various hillslope landforms, and to find novel quantification approaches.

Dr. Vilim Filipović
Prof. Dr. Thomas Baumgartl
Guest Editors

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