Lead Organizer: Milad Aminzadeh - Institute of Geo-Hydroinformatics, Hamburg University of Technology, Germany
- Minsu Kim - University of Graz, Austria
- Sahar Bakhshian - Rice University, USA
- Kathleen Smits - Southern Methodist University, USA
- Nima Shokri - Hamburg University of Technology, Germany
Sustainable use of soil and water resources is crucial to preserve healthy terrestrial ecosystems and maintaining food security. Many of the scientific and technical challenges related to these issues hinge on understanding, controlling and optimizing processes that involve the multiscale dynamics of water and nutrients in the soil-plant system, arguably the porous medium ‘par excellence’. With this theme in mind, this mini-symposium aims to bring together contributions on the physics, chemistry and biology of porous media with emphasis on applications to the ecohydrology and biogeochemistry of ecosystems. Fundamental research on these interdisciplinary topics will provide guidance and novel solutions to improve human actions on sustainable natural resource management, and reduce their potential negative impacts. Of particular interest are long-lasting environmental repercussions of water and soil management and the elements of irreversibility on the soil characteristics, particularly in relation to soil degradation and salinization, groundwater dynamics, carbon and nutrient retention, which in turn affect plant productivity and ultimately ecosystem resilience, soil health and human welfare. Also, we welcome contributions toward optimal land-use management for sustainable use of terrestrial environments and quantitative analysis of the effectiveness of applied human strategies on ecosystem management for food and water supply security.
