Climate, Hydrology and Isotope Variability in Mediterranean Hydroecosystems

Dear Colleagues,

Regions with Mediterranean conditions are among the most affected by both human pressure (irrigation for agriculture, drinking water supply, industry, energy production, etc.) and climate variability. In these conditions, water availability still remains a limiting factor to human development but also to the preservation of high biodiversity hydroecosystems involving a lot of groundwater dependent ecosystems like coastal lagoons, wetlands, alluvial plains, etc. The maintaining of the key ecosystem services (food production, flood mitigation, carbon storage, recreation, etc) provided by such freshwater-dependant environments is then a major challenge for Mediterranean regions.

In order to promote new and improved knowledge on such environments as well as better management practises, hydrological investigations via isotope tools can help identify many fundamental hydrological and hydrogeological characteristics and parameters by combining different tools together and proposing new methodologies of survey.

Special attention will be given to studies involving investigations on isotopes in the atmosphere-soil-plant continuum, stable isotopes chronicles archived in plants and other material (shells, speleothem, etc) giving access to palaeo-hydrological reconstructions, isotope quantification of plant transpiration, groundwater recharge, and mixing processes tracing.

The aim of this Special Issue is to provide an overview of recent trends in Mediterranean hydrological studies involving isotope hydrology tools and focusing on the intricate interactions between atmospheric water, surface water, groundwater, and ecosystems. Topics will concern new investigations and findings linking together isotope hydrology and freshwater dependent ecosystems at any scale (region, watershed, aquifer, wetland, etc.)

Prof. Dr. Frédéric Huneau
Guest Editor

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