Oral Session

S01 Soil Physics

Mass and energy transport in the unsaturated zone are complex, linked processes. Predictions of the total water and energy exchange across the soil surface is critical for understanding processes as different as seed germination, trafficability, and weather prediction. Despite the fundamental importance of evaporation from soil, surprisingly little is known about this process in realistic soils under field conditions. This session presents the state of the art and new developments in the theory of evaporation from soils, as well as new approaches to measure and model the linked nonlinear processes associated with evaporation from soil.