Papers published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions are under open-access review for the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Abstract Mediterranean ecosystems are commonly heterogeneous savanna-like ecosystems, with contrasting plant functional types (PFTs, e.g., grass and woody vegetation) competing for the water use. Mediterranean ecosystems are also commonly character...

Terrestrial ecosystems currently sequester about one third of anthropogenic CO2 emissions each year, an important ecosystem service that dampens climate change. The future fate of this net uptake of CO2 by land based ecosystems is highly uncertain.Most ecosystemmodels used to predict the future terrestrial carbon cycle share a common architecture, whereby carbon that enters the system as net pr...

Mining activities have caused serious heavy metal pollution in soil and water resources. The weathering mullock and mining tailings transport the heavy metal in polluted areas into ambient soil, rivers, and groundwater, which destroys the surrounding ecosystem. The menace of heavy metal elements in minerals can lead to botanical variety and impact vegetal growth. With the development of remote ...

[1] Vegetation, particularly its dynamics, is the often-ignored linchpin of the land-surface hydrology. This work emphasizes the coupled nature of vegetation-water-energy dynamics by considering linkages at timescales that vary from hourly to interannual. A series of two papers is presented. A dynamic ecohydrological model [tRIBS + VEGGIE] is described in this paper. It reproduces essential wat...

Combination of severe weather conditions and vegetation impacts is the most dominant cause of outages in electric power systems. Instance of high speed wind and heavy precipitation may cause trees to come in contact with power lines due to the following reasons: a) branches break off and fly into lines; b) complete trees topple when moved by wind, or c) tree branches grow into the lines. The ma...

This discussion paper is/has been under review for the journal Earth System Dynamics (ESD). Please refer to the corresponding final paper in ESD if available. Abstract The role of extra-tropical vegetation on the large-scale tropical circulation is examined in the version 3 Hadley Centre Climate Model (HadCM3). Alternative representations of present day vegetation from observations and a dynami...

Monitoring and forecasting of natural vegetation succession is essential for optimal management of river floodplain ecosystems in Western Europe. For example the development of woody vegetation types (e.g., softwood forest) increases the hydraulic resistance of the floodplain and can have negative effects on the discharge capacity of the river. However, from a biodiversity point-of-view this de...

Total DNA was directly extracted from microbial populations in grassland soils taken from three geographically distinct upland sites at Garrigill, Aber and Sourhope, UK. Within each site, grasslands were categorised using the National Vegetation Classification into distinct vegetation sequences, namely unimproved, semi-improved and improved. Microbial community DNA was extracted from the differ...