Transdisciplinary soil hydrology

Abstract

In this paper, I present an evolutional pathway from disciplinary towards transdisciplinary science and research and offer contemporary examples of interdisciplinary research in soil hydrology. I further explore exciting opportunities that can lead to transdisciplinary research (TDres), as society demands for our science expertise to be increasingly involved in developing solutions in global issues of sustainability, food and water security, as well as in the decision-making process. By way of TDres involvement in public policy, the scientist is going to be working in the trans-science domains for which (s)he is likely not very prepared. Recommendations are presented to better train students and early-career scientists so that they can be effective in participating in TDres and communicating their scientific knowledge to relevant stakeholders, the public, and decision makers as part of the policy-making process.

Special Issue: Tribute to Rien van Genuchten, recipient of the 2023 Wolf Prize for Agriculture

“…As articulated in the previous section, the continued development of multidisciplinary collaborations has paved the way to further disciplinary contributions to broader societal issues, potentially leading to transdisciplinary applications (Hopmans, 2020). In the spirit of the scope of VZJ and the need to increase multidisciplinary soil investigations, this SI is an excellent example of the broad range of applications, thereby reflecting the impact of Rien's career.…”

Western U.S. multistate research project on “water movement in soils”: A retrospective

“…The impacts of scaling soil physics up to field and watershed scales led, in large part, to the renaming of Soil Physics (S‐1) to the Soil Physics and Hydrology Division of SSSA. Indeed, the science emanating from this community is now truly transdisciplinary (Hopmans, 2020). Members of this community have further affected soil and vadose zone sciences globally, including initiatives in the SSSA (Or et al., 2011), American Geophysical Union, and the European Geophysical Union, and have helped create the International Soil Modeling Consortium (Vereecken et al., 2016), as examples.…”

Transdisciplinary contributions and opportunities in soil physical hydrology

“…The special section starts out with Hopmans' reflection on "Transdisciplinary Soil Hydrology" (Hopmans, 2020), which is a thought-provoking call for more transdisciplinary hydrologic research that better links science with policy and decision-making and highlights a need to communicate our science to diverse audiences and stakeholders.…”