Summary
This narrative review synthesises evidence from United Kingdom and other temperate climate studies to characterise how soils respond to agricultural and ecosystem drought—periods of soil drying followed by rewetting—and to identify knowledge gaps in understanding temperate soil resilience. The authors examine key processes governing soil moisture behaviour, principal changes across soil properties during drought and rewetting, interactions between these changes, and soil recovery mechanisms, with particular attention to processes at both soil and catchment scales. The review highlights areas where understanding remains incomplete and proposes research priorities for improving predictions of soil response to future drought events.
Regional applicability
This study is directly applicable to United Kingdom conditions, being prompted by the 2022 UK summer drought and drawing substantially on UK research alongside temperate country comparisons. The findings and identified knowledge gaps are immediately relevant to UK agricultural practice, soil management policy, and ecosystem resilience planning under climate variability.
Key measures
Physical, chemical, and biological properties of soils; soil moisture storage and transport; drought-induced changes and rewetting responses; catchment-scale soil responses; soil recovery indicators
Outcomes reported
The paper synthesises knowledge on how temperate soils respond to drought and rewetting, examining changes in physical, chemical, and biological soil properties and identifying key knowledge gaps. It reviews soil behaviour during dry periods, rewetting processes at soil and catchment scales, and soil recovery trajectories following drought termination.
Topic tags
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