Soil Moisture, Soils and Land Cover Effects on Regional Climate (Southern South America)

OMAR MÜLLER; SALVIA, MARÍA MERCEDES; ALCARAZ-SEGURA, DOMINGO; BERBERY, HUGO; ALVARO SOLDANO; GRINGS, FRANCISCO MATIAS; DANILO DADAMIA; BRUSCANTINI, CINTIA

Leipzig

Workshop; The GEWEX-SoilWat initiative: first planning workshop for scope and interactions Advancing Integration of Soil and Subsurface Processes in Climate Models; 2016

International Soil Moisture Consortium

The Soil and Critical Zone communities have been exploring ways to broaden disciplinary participation in addressing global challenges where soil and subsurface processes (groundwater) play important roles ? these include climate change, food security, land and water resources and more. GEWEX plays a prominent role in quantifying land-atmosphere interactions in various modeling platforms and appears a natural partner for fostering synergistic interactions between the soil/subsurface and the climate communities. We have made presentations at two GEWEX meetings (and to the GEWEX scientific steering group in January 2016) to promote such collaborations and discussed potential areas of mutual interests, however, exact mechanisms, topical themes and priorities, persons involved, how to organize and engage the two communities and issues remain open. The primary objectives of this planning workshop are to harness the enthusiastic expressions of interest from both communities and transform these into an effective and sustainable plan of action. We seek input from the two communities (GEWEX and Soil/Groundwater) to identify the most pressing challenges and scientific topics, how to mutually engage and cooperate, how to weave such activities into the present GEWEX structure, how to provide feedback to the soil/water communities, and how to expand and involve other interested people. In short, we hope to shape and promote cooperation that would benefit the scientific communities involved.