Climate Change Dynamics: Impact of Droughts and Heatwaves on Terrestrial Ecosystems

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change is causing unprecedented droughts and heatwaves at a global scale with significant effects on agricultural and forest ecosystems, which is affecting food security and the carbon sequestration potential of terrestrial ecosystems. These effects have been increasing in recent decades and were apparently more severe in 2022, with a stronger impact on global economies and causing widening agricultural losses and poverty, especially in already marginal environments. Accordingly, various research activities are being conducted with the aim of improving the contribution of soils to important societal challenges, such as mitigating and adaptating to the effects of droughts and heatwaves resulting from climate change dynamics. This includes the sustainability of agricultural and forest systems in providing ecosystem services, the prevention of land and soil degradation, and the restoration of non-responsive soils in a holistic manner through the establishment of best-bet management practices that are adapted to climate change, and in the best-case scenario, contribute to curbing climate change. Adopting monitoring and evaluation platforms with novel sensor technologies is also important to validate the effectiveness of such new land management practices and their potential effects on nutrient cycling, climate change, and carbon storage in terrestrial ecosystems. Moreover, the economic implications of climate change are huge, and factoring this constraint into technological developments will further boost adaptation and mitigation strategies. However, the current research appears to be fairly diverse in this field and it is difficult to objectively evaluate the real impacts and successes at local, regional, and global scales. This Special issue is intended to fill this knowledge void by bringing together different views and successes so as to better inform policy decisions in this area of global uncertainty.

Prof. Dr. Christopher Ngosong
Dr. Katarzyna Szyga-Pluta
Prof. Dr. Ognjen Bonacci
Guest Editors

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• carbon sequestration
• climate change impacts/mitigation
• ecosystem management
• food and nutrition security
• terrestrial ecosystems
• ecology and biodiversity
• drought and floods
• policy and economic implications