Abstract. The holistic study of soils requires an interdisciplinary approach involving biologists, chemists, geologists, and physicists amongst others, something that has been true from the earliest days of the field. This approach has been strengthened and reinforced as current research continues to use experts trained in both soil science and related fields and by the wide array of issues impacting the world's biosphere that require an in-depth understanding of soils. Of fundamental importance amongst these issues are biodiversity, biofuels/energy security, climate change, ecosystem services, food security, human health, land degradation, and water security, each representing a critical challenge for research. In order to establish a benchmark for the type of research we seek to highlight in each issue of SOIL, here in this editorial, we outline the interdisciplinary nature of soil science research that we are seeking for in SOIL, with a focus on the myriad ways soil science can be used to expand investigation into a more holistic and therefore richer approach to soil research. In addition, we provide a selection of invited review papers in the first issue of SOIL that address the study of soils and the ways in which soil investigations are essential to other related fields. We hope that both this editorial and the first issue will serve as examples of the kinds of topics we would like to see published in SOIL and will stimulate excitement among our readers and authors to participate in this new venture.

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The repellency index (RI) defined as the adjusted ratio between soil-ethanol, S e , and soil-water, S w , sorptivities estimated from minidisk infiltrometer experiments has been used instead of the widely used water drop penetration time and molarity of ethanol drop tests to assess soil water repellency. However, sorptivity calculated by the usual early-time infiltration equation may be overestimated as the effects of gravity and lateral capillary are neglected. With the aim to establish the best applicative procedure to assess RI, different approaches to estimate S e and S w were compared that make use of both the early-time infiltration equation (namely, the 1 min, S1, and the short-time linearization approaches), and the two-term axisymmetric infiltration equation, valid for early to intermediate times (namely, the cumulative linearization and differentiated linearization approaches). The dataset included 85 minidisk infiltrometer tests conducted in three sites in Italy and Spain under different vegetation habitats (forest of Pinus pinaster and Pinus halepensis, burned pine forest, and annual grasses), soil horizons (organic and mineral), postfire treatments, and initial soil water contents.The S1 approach was inapplicable in 42% of experiments as water infiltration did not start in the first minute. The short-time linearization approach yielded a systematic overestimation of S e and S w that resulted in an overestimation of RI by a factor of 1.57 and 1.23 as compared with the cumulative linearization and differentiated linearization approaches. A new repellency index, RI s , was proposed as the ratio between the slopes of the linearized data for the wettable and hydrophobic stages obtained by a single water infiltration test. For the experimental conditions considered, RI s was significantly correlated with RI and WDPT. Compared with RI, RI s includes information on both soil sorptivity and hydraulic conductivity and, therefore, it can be considered more physically linked to the hydrological processes affected by soil water repellency. KEYWORDS infiltration, minidisk infiltrometer, repellency index, soil hydraulic conductivity, soil sorptivity, soil water repellency, two-term infiltration model, water drop penetration time

Fires are important but socially and economically unwanted disturbances of the ecosystems. They cannot be considered as a problem, they are global phenomena. Protected areas are created to protect biodiversity, and strict protection is often applied, forgetting that fire had shaped that that we aim to protect. This harsh protection is producing important changes in the protected habitats and is increasing their vulnerability to destructive wildfires. Thus, it is of major interest to incorporate fire management in the protected areas plan, including the (re)use of prescribed fire and traditional burning in order to reintroduce fire regimens, fundamental to the landscape sustainability. This incorporation represents an enormous step in the habitats sustainability. Policies should be more focused on fire prevention than on its suppression.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.erem.59.1.856