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Participant: part of or influencing processes

Soil water

Appears in 45 processs and 102 steps. Everything below is linked: open a process to see it in context.

Top processes

Mineral weathering and parent material

7 steps

Carbonic acid forms from CO2 dissolved in soil water
Which weathering reaction dominates
Silicate hydrolysis releases base cations and silica, forms secondary clay
and 4 more in this process

Silicate weathering rate control and CO2 drawdown

5 steps

Soil inorganic carbon: pedogenic carbonate formation and dissolution

5 steps

Unsaturated hydraulic conductivity and Richards flow

5 steps

Shrink-swell cycles and crack dynamics in clay soils

5 steps

Living soil system

4 steps

Dissolved organic carbon leached
Soil-plant-water coupling and drought response
Soil inorganic carbon: pedogenic carbonate formation and dissolution
and 1 more in this process

Show 39 more processes

Water infiltration, retention and movement

4 steps

Preferential flow and macropore bypass
Plant-available water from field capacity to wilting point
Unsaturated hydraulic conductivity and Richards flow
and 1 more in this process

Soil-plant-water coupling and drought response

4 steps

Start: Soil-plant-water coupling and drought response
End: Soil-plant-water coupling and drought response
Soil water moves to the root along a potential gradient
and 1 more in this process

Shrink-swell cracking and self-mulching in smectitic soils

4 steps

Plant-available water from field capacity to wilting point

4 steps

Soil evaporation stages and vapour transport

4 steps

Soil thermal regime and heat flow

4 steps

Pedogenic carbonate accumulation and calcrete formation

3 steps

Biofilms and quorum signalling in soil microcolonies

3 steps

Enzymatic depolymerization of plant polymers

2 steps

Soil nitrification, nitrate reduction and nitrogen gas losses

2 steps

Preferential flow and macropore bypass

2 steps

Freeze-thaw cycling and soil structure

2 steps

Pedogenesis and soil horizon development

2 steps

Pyrite oxidation and acid sulfate weathering

2 steps

Aggregate formation and pore structure

2 steps

Nematode feeding groups, the c-p scale and nitrogen release

2 steps

Gas diffusion and air-filled porosity control of soil aeration

2 steps

Soil compaction: stress, density, root limitation and recovery

2 steps

Bacteria and archaea

1 step

Oxygen availability in the microsite

Occlusion in aggregates

1 step

Wetting-drying and freeze-thaw cycles reshape pores

Soil CO2 and biotic enhancement of weathering

1 step

Carbonic and organic acids acidify microsites at mineral surfaces

Soil production and erosion balance

1 step

Bedrock is converted to soil by weathering at the base of the soil

Clay mineralogy and organic matter set cation exchange capacity

1 step

Weathering stage decides the dominant clay: 2:1 silicates in young soils, kaolinite and oxides in old wet soils

Iron redox cycling and the enzyme latch in wet soil

1 step

Water fills pores, gas diffuses about 10,000 times more slowly than in air, interior microsites go anoxic

Redox ladder: sequential electron acceptors in waterlogged soil

1 step

Respiration outpaces oxygen diffusion through water-filled pores; Oxygen disappears

Soil disturbance (fire, tillage, drought) and recovery

1 step

Drying soil stresses microbes and cuts diffusion of substrates

Methane oxidation by methanotrophs: the upland soil sink

1 step

Soil moisture sets an optimum: dry soil limits cell activity, wet soil blocks diffusion

Actinomycetes: Streptomyces hyphal life cycle, extracellular enzymes and antibiotics

1 step

Gram-positive thick walls and spores allow activity at low water potential, so actinobacteria are enriched in drying soil

Atmospheric dust deposition and loess as soil parent material

1 step

Persistent deposition builds silt-rich, carbonate-rich loess that weathers into fertile soil

Soil-atmosphere exchange of methane and nitrous oxide

1 step

Methane uptake is limited by diffusion: wet or compacted soil slows uptake, ammonium fertiliser inhibits it

Soil viruses and bacteriophages: lysis, lysogeny and the viral shunt

1 step

Contact is limited to connected water films; clay and organic matter adsorb phage and can protect or inactivate them

Volcanic ash weathering to allophane and imogolite (andic soils)

1 step

Glass hydrolyses within centuries in humid, well-drained conditions, releasing Al3+ and Si(OH)4

Volcanic ash parent material, short-range-order minerals and Andosol carbon

1 step

In wet climates over millennia allophane crystallises to halloysite and Fe oxides and the carbon protection weakens

Soil respiration: temperature and moisture control and climate feedback

1 step

Moisture optimum near 60 percent water-filled pore space: drier soil limits substrate diffusion, wetter soil limits oxygen

Aerenchyma, radial oxygen loss and the oxidised rhizosphere of wetland plants

1 step

Waterlogging fills pores, and gas diffusion in water is roughly 10,000 times slower than in air, so soil goes anoxic within hours to days

Matric potential and the soil water retention curve

1 step

Capillary and adsorptive forces bind water to particles, giving soil water a negative matric potential

Earthworm drilosphere: gut passage, casts, middens and greenhouse gas effects

1 step

In dry or hot soil worms coil in mucus-lined chambers (aestivation) and cocoons carry the population

Wind erosion: saltation, dust emission and deposition

1 step

Soil moisture raises the threshold: u*t increases by [1 + 1.21 (w - w')^0.68]^0.5 with w' = 0.0014 (%clay)^2 + 0.17 (%clay), so a 20% clay soil at 8% gravimetric water has about twice the dry threshold

Nutrient recycling versus new inputs across ecosystem age

1 step

Fate of nutrients released by decomposition

Often found with

Water 67 Plant roots 21 Pore space 19 Soil pores 14 Oxygen 11 Clay minerals 11 Clay minerals 11 Carbon dioxide 9 Calcite 9 Smectite 9 Calcium 8 Soil microbes 7

Known by 719 participants and resources across the map.