Climate Stress Impacts on Forest Ecosystem Water Dynamics
A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Hydrology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2025 | Viewed by 84
Special Issue Editors
Interests: forest hydrology; water balance; meteorology; soil physics; hydrological modeling; drought; evapotranspiration; precipitation; hydrology; soil analysis; soil science; soil erosion; water science; watershed management; catchment hydrology; post-fire rehabilitation treatments; hillslope hydrology
Interests: radiation; meteorology; climate; drought; radiation measurements; climate variability; precipitation; climate science; environment; agrometeorology; eddy covariance; climate dynamics; physics of global warming; boundary layer meteorology; atmospheric radiation; micrometeorology; bioclimatology; biometeorology; climate change; atmosphere; weather
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: natural hazards; natural disasters; multi-criteria decision analysis; hydrological modeling; hydrology; sediment transport; climate change; rainfall; watershed management; water balance; geomorphology; flash flood; soil erosion; flood modeling; remote sensing; spatial analysis; drought; evapotranspiration; forest hydrology; aridity; vulnerability assessment; catchment hydrology; hydrologic and water resource modeling and simulation; hydrological data management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Climate stress significantly impacts water dynamics in forest ecosystems. Rapid changes in climate, including altered precipitation patterns, rising temperatures, and elevated atmospheric CO2 levels, are diversifying key components of the forest hydrological cycle, such as precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, and soil water availability. Additional stressors, including forest fires, urbanization, and insect infestations, exacerbate these disruptions, leading to forest degradation, land-use changes, and tree mortality. Management strategies are used to implement adaptive responses addressing climate-induced challenges, drawing inspiration from forest ecosystems' remarkable natural adaptation mechanisms to mitigate impacts on water stress (e.g., optimization of water use efficiency, changes in hydrological pathways, planting resilient species, etc.). By integrating ecological, hydrological, and management perspectives, we can develop resilient forest ecosystems that sustain their environmental and economic functions under changing climatic conditions. Advances in recent decades—spanning the optimization of field measurement equipment for critical hydrometeorological parameters, the evolution of remote sensing technologies, the application of geographic information systems (GIS), and the development of hydrological models—have significantly enriched our understanding of this issue.
This Special Issue seeks to enhance the synthesis of our process-based understanding of water dynamics in various forest ecosystems under climate-induced stressors. We invite the research and scientific community to contribute by submitting innovative studies on the following topics:
- Hydrological cycles and forest ecosystems;
- Forest water resilience in a changing climate;
- Vegetation’s adaptation to water stress;
- Drought and soil water availability;
- Biodiversity and water interactions;
- Extreme weather events and forest water dynamics;
- Hydrological and erosion modeling;
- Remote sensing in forest hydrology;
- Post-fire hydrological impacts;
- Water-related ecosystem services;
- Water-related management practices;
- Tree line shift and climate change.
Dr. Athanassios Bourletsikas
Dr. Nikolaos Proutsos
Dr. Stefanos Stefanidis
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- forest hydrology
- water balance
- soil–water interactions
- evapotranspiration
- hydrometeorological monitoring
- climate-induced water stress
- drought
- watershed management
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