Water’s natural fingerprints reveal how it’s stored, mixed, and released through the Earth’s Critical Zone, potentially improving Earth System models in a rapidly warming world.
Critical Zone
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Managed Agriculture Hinders Predictability of Critical Zone Features
Intensively managed agricultural sites show behavioral shifts of the critical zone system and subsystems thus impacting predictability.
Posted inScience Updates
An Art-Science Partnership Offering New Views of Dynamic Landscapes
The immersive and interactive WILDLAND exhibition allowed the public—and the exhibition’s creators—to explore connections among water, trees, fire, and other natural and human-made materials expressed across a spectrum of artistic approaches.
Posted inFeatures
Drilling Down to Open Up New Understanding of Earth’s Continents
Scientists have drilled into Earth’s crust for decades to understand natural hazards, past climates, energy resources, and more. They’ve only scratched the surface of what we can learn.
Posted inFeatures
Forests, Water, and Livelihoods in the Lesser Himalaya
Complex changes in land use, land cover, climate, and demographics are combining to stress water security for millions of people in the region.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Earth’s Critical Zone Remains a Mystery Without its People
Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals may only be possible if human activities are central to critical zone science.
Posted inNews
Solar Panels Nurse Desert Soil Back to Life
Cultivating delicate soil crust in the shade of solar panels might boost the recovery of arid land.
Posted inScience Updates
Envisioning a Near-Surface Geophysics Center for Convergent Science
A recent effort identified how a proposed near-surface geophysics center integrating research and teaching could address critical challenges and promote community engagement and cultural change.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
To Estimate Plant Water Use, Consider the Xylem
New research shows that chemical isotopes from plant xylem can improve representations of the forest water cycle.