Flow pathways of water and solutes in soils form distinct patterns, which are not a priori predictable. Macropore structure is a prime cause, but other factors, such as differing initial or boundary conditions, may also predispose a soil to produce bypassing of infiltrating water. This study was conducted to assess the flow pathways of water in different soils and to investigate the effect of initial water content on the flow pattern. Dye‐tracing experiments were carried out at 14 different field sites. The sites represent a good portion of soils used for agricultural crop production in Switzerland. Each site consisted of two 1.4 by 1.4 m plots, one of which had been covered with a plastic roof for two months before the experiment to achieve different initial water contents. Forty millimeters of water containing the dye Brilliant Blue FCF (C.I. Food Blue 2) were applied within 8 hours onto the plots with a sprinkling apparatus. One day after irrigation the plots were excavated, and the stained pattern was examined on a vertical 1 by l m soil profile. The spatial structure of flow patterns showed remarkable differences. In most soils, water bypassed the soil matrix. In some soils, dye penetrated beyond l m depth, whereas in others it remained in the top 50 cm. Structured soils were more prone to produce bypass flow, deep dye penetration, and pulse splitting than nonstructured soils. The initial water content had a less pronounced effect in some soils and no effect in others.

The remarkable complexity of soil and its importance to a wide range of ecosystem services presents major challenges to the modeling of soil processes. Although major progress in soil models has occurred in the last decades, models of soil processes remain disjointed between disciplines or ecosystem services, with considerable uncertainty remaining in the quality of predictions and several challenges that remain yet to be addressed. First, there is a need to improve exchange of knowledge and experience among the different disciplines in soil science and to reach out to other Earth science communities. Second, the community needs to develop a new generation of soil models based on a systemic approach comprising relevant physical, chemical, and biological processes to address critical knowledge gaps in our understanding of soil processes and their interactions. Overcoming these challenges will facilitate exchanges between soil modeling and climate, plant, and social science modeling communities. It will allow us to contribute to preserve and improve our assessment of ecosystem services and advance our understanding of climate-change feedback mechanisms, among others, thereby facilitating and strengthening communication among scientific disciplines and society. We review the role of modeling soil processes in quantifying key soil processes that shape ecosystem services, with a focus on provisioning and regulating services. We then identify key challenges in modeling soil processes, including the systematic incorporation of heterogeneity and uncertainty, the integration of data and models, and strategies for effective integration of knowledge on physical, chemical, and biological soil processes. We discuss how the soil modeling community could best interface with modern modeling activities in other disciplines, such as climate, ecology, and plant research, and how to weave novel observation and measurement techniques into soil models. We propose the establishment of an international soil modeling consortium to coherently advance soil modeling activities and foster communication with other Earth science disciplines. Such a consortium should promote soil modeling platforms and data repository for model development, calibration and intercomparison essential for addressing contemporary challenges.

Much information is available in the literature about pesticide transport through soils at the field scale. The purpose of this study is to review the literature with a focus on pesticide leaching to groundwater. The literature was compiled and discussed with respect to different factors that influence pesticide leaching. Pesticide leaching below the root zone has been demonstrated in sandy as well as in loamy soils. Particularly in loamy soils, there is evidence that even strongly adsorbing chemicals can move along preferential flow pathways and that the travel times of pesticides are comparable to those of conservative solutes. The amounts of pesticides leached below the root zone by worst case rainfall events depend on the chemical properties and can reach up to 5% of the applied mass. When there is no heavy rainfall shortly following application of chemicals, the mass annually leached below the root zone is in the range of <0.1 to 1%, occasionally it can reach up to 4%. Although a direct comparison cannot be made, the mass lost by leaching seems generally to be smaller than that lost by runoff, depending of course on the slope of the fields. Several factors that affect pesticide leaching, such as surface preparation, soil structure, soil water content, type of irrigation, pesticide formulation, time of application and rainfall events, are discussed with support of experimental evidence. While some factors showed inconsistent effects, others show promise in controlling leaching mechanisms. These latter factors include initial water content, surface preparation, and time of pesticide application. Based on the reviewed literature, recommendations were made for future research activities.

SignificanceIt has remained an unresolved question whether microorganisms recovered from the most arid environments on Earth are thriving under such extreme conditions or are just dead or dying vestiges of viable cells fortuitously deposited by atmospheric processes. Based on multiple lines of evidence, we show that indigenous microbial communities are present and temporally active even in the hyperarid soils of the Atacama Desert (Chile). Following extremely rare precipitation events in the driest parts of this desert, where rainfall often occurs only once per decade, we were able to detect episodic incidences of biological activity. Our findings expand the range of hyperarid environments temporarily habitable for terrestrial life, which by extension also applies to other planetary bodies like Mars.