Root zone in the Earth system
Abstract. The root zone is a vital part of the Earth system and a key element in hydrology, ecology, agronomy, and land surface processes. However, its definition varies across disciplines, creating barriers to interdisciplinary understanding. Moreover, characterizing the root zone is challenging due to a lack of consensus on definitions, estimation methods, and their merits and limitations. This opinion paper provides a holistic definition of the root zone from a hydrology perspective, including its moisture storage, deficit, and storage capacity. We demonstrate that the root zone plays a critical role in the biosphere, pedosphere, rhizosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere, and cryosphere of the Earth system. We underscore the limitations of the traditional reductionist approach in modelling this complex and dynamic zone and advocate for a shift towards a holistic, ecosystem-centred approach. We argue that a holistic approach offers a more systematic, simple, dynamic, scalable, and observable way to describe and predict the role of the root zone in Earth system science.
Authors
- Hongkai Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0786-8067)
- Markus Hrachowitz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0508-1017)
- Jianyang Xia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5923-6665)
- Wei Shao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1638-5975)
- Qiaojuan Xi
- Lan Wang‐Erlandsson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7739-5069)
- Ge Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0159-1370)
- Fabrizio Fenicia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8065-6004)
- H. H. G. Savenije (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2234-7203)
Institutions
- Stockholm Resilience Centre (SE)
- Stockholm University (SE)
- State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering (CN)
- Southern Research Station (US)
- Bolin Centre for Climate Research (SE)
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (DE)
- Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (CH)
- East China Normal University (CN)
- Delft University of Technology (NL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Hydrology and earth system sciences
- Published
- 2024-10-14
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-4477-2024
- Citations
- 37
- Primary Topic
- Soil Moisture and Remote Sensing
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 7.61
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Data Center of Management Science, National Natural Science Foundation of China - Peking University