Data Assimilation and Modeling for Sustainable Soil–Water Systems
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Soil and Water".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2026
Special Issue Editors
2. College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China
Interests: soil hydrology; agrohydrology; critical zone science; modeling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: ecohydrology; restoration ecology; water resouces and cycling in drylands
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: agricultrual engineering; water resources; climate change research; hydrological modeling; soil and water conservation; GIS and RS applications
Interests: remote sensing; proximal soil sensing; machine learning; soil process modeling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: human–water systems (sociohydrology); agent-based modeling; data science and machine learning; water system modeling; digital twins for water systems
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Sustainable soil and water management increasingly relies on the integration of models with multi-scale observations. This Special Issue explores the application of data assimilation and modeling in soil and water systems across natural and agricultural landscapes. Achieving this integration demands model-centric data assimilation frameworks capable of fusing in situ and remote sensing observations—such as satellite-based evapotranspiration and soil moisture, geophysical surveys (e.g., EMI), cosmic-ray neutron sensing, and lysimeter and hydrograph records—with crop–vadose–groundwater models.
We welcome contributions on digital twins for farms and irrigation districts, uncertainty quantification in soil water models, tracer-aided modeling to partition evaporation and transpiration, agent-based models that simulate stakeholder decision-making, and predict-then-verify frameworks for adaptive management. This Special Issue encourages interdisciplinary submissions that bridge hydrology, soil science, agronomy, and socio-environmental systems, and will highlight case studies that demonstrate the value of integrated modeling for resilience, drought adaptation, and policy evaluation.
Prof. Dr. Ying Zhao
Dr. Jie Xue
Dr. Ali Mokhtar
Dr. Jingyi Huang
Dr. Yao Hu
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- data assimilation
- digital twin
- hydrological modeling
- soil moisture
- crop–vadose–aquifer interaction
- remote sensing
- climate resilience
- tracer-based partitioning
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