Groundwater and Connected Ecosystems

Dear Respected Colleagues,

There are significant gaps in the literature concerning highly valuable topics of groundwater ecology. Groundwater supports extraordinarily numerous and diverse aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems that are at risk globally, and yet are insufficiently defined and protected. Among the ecosystems that have been neglected, future research should focus on local specificity of flooded forests, wetlands, springs, and subterranean estuaries as well as many other terrestrial habitats and ecosystems. To fill this substantial knowledge gaps, this Special Issue of Water titled “Groundwater and Connected Ecosystems” is devoted primarily to (1) illuminating the connections between groundwater and connected ecosystems; (2) improving knowledge of the close interdependency between known and/or hitherto insufficiently known or even unknown groundwater-related ecosystems that require access to groundwater to maintain their assemblages, ecological processes, and services; (3) defining variables that infer that relationship. I am happy to invite you to submit a paper for this Special Issue, which will improve the knowledge base of the global scientific community, covering all groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs). I invite theoretical, experimental, and applied papers related to ecosystem services and GDEs, using various datasets and interdisciplinary scientific knowledge. This Special Issue represents the possibility of evaluating the diversity of the groundwater connected organisms and building new models based on remote sensing and conservation principles.

I hereby invite papers presenting original research or reviews on the above topic and hope to receive many high-quality submissions.

Please, feel free to share this invitation with your colleagues, and I hope you will have a chance to contribute. Reviewing of the Special Issue papers should follow the standard reviewing schedule of Water.

Warm regards,

Prof. Dr. Sanja Gottstein
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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