Plastic mulch in combination with drip irrigation present a common agricultural management technique practiced in commercial vegetable production. This management can result in various impacts on water and nutrient distribution and consequently affect nutrient dynamics in underlying soil. The aim of this work was to: (i) compare the effects of different mulching types (color) on soil temperature and (ii) crop growth; (iii) estimate the effect of plastic mulch cover (MULCH) on water and (iv) nitrate dynamics using HYDRUS-2D. The field experiment was designed in the Croatian coastal karst area on main plots with three levels of nitrogen fertilizer: 70, 140, and 210 kg ha−1, which were all divided in five subplots considering mulch covering with different colors types (black, brown, silver, and white) and no covering (control). Monitoring of water and nitrate dynamics was performed through lysimeters which ensured input data for HYDRUS-2D model. The experimental results showed that plastic mulch had a significant effect on soil temperature regime and crop yield. The dark color mulch (black, brown) caused higher soil temperature, which consequently enabled earlier plant development and higher yields. HYDRUS-2D simulated results showed good fitting to the field data in cumulative water and also nitrate outflow. Water flow simulations produced model efficiency of 0.84 for control (CONT) and 0.56 for MULCH systems, while nitrate simulations showed model efficiency ranging from 0.67 to 0.83 and from 0.70 to 0.93, respectively. Additional simulations exposed faster transport of nitrates below drip line in the CONT system, mostly because of the increased surface area subjected to precipitation/irrigation due to the absence of soil cover. Numerical modeling revealed large influence of plastic mulch cover on water and nutrient distribution in soil. The study suggests that under this management practice the nitrogen amounts applied via fertigation can be lowered and optimized to reduce possible negative influence on environment

Microplastics, as an emerging contaminant, have been shown to threaten the sustainability of ecosystems, and there is also concern about human exposure, as microplastic particles tend to bioaccumulate and biomagnify through the food chain. While microplastics in marine environments have been extensively studied, research on microplastics in terrestrial ecosystems is just starting to gain momentum. In this paper, we used scientometric analysis to understand the current status of microplastic research in terrestrial systems. The global scientific literature on microplastics in terrestrial ecosystems, based on data from the Web of Science between 1986 and 2020, was explored with the VOSviewer scientometric software. Co-occurrence visualization maps and citation analysis were used to identify the relationship among keywords, authors, organizations, countries, and journals focusing on the issues of terrestrial microplastics. The results show that research on microplastics in terrestrial systems just started in the past few years but is increasing rapidly. Science of the Total Environment ranks first among the journals publishing papers on terrestrial microplastics. In addition, we also highlighted the desire to establish standards/protocols for extracting and quantifying microplastics in soils. Future studies are recommended to fill the knowledge gaps on the abundance, distribution, ecological and economic effects, and toxicity of microplastics.

Hydro-pedotransfer functions (PTFs) relate easy-to-measure and readily available soil information to soil hydraulic properties (SHPs) for applications in a wide range of process-based and empirical models, thereby enabling the assessment of soil hydraulic effects on hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological processes. At least more than 4 decades of research have been invested to derive such relationships. However, while models, methods, data storage capacity, and computational efficiency have advanced, there are fundamental concerns related to the scope and adequacy of current PTFs, particularly when applied to parameterise models used at the field scale and beyond. Most of the PTF development process has focused on refining and advancing the regression methods, while fundamental aspects have remained largely unconsidered. Most soil systems are not represented in PTFs, which have been built mostly for agricultural soils in temperate climates. Thus, existing PTFs largely ignore how parent material, vegetation, land use, and climate affect processes that shape SHPs. The PTFs used to parameterise the Richards–Richardson equation are mostly limited to predicting parameters of the van Genuchten–Mualem soil hydraulic functions, despite sufficient evidence demonstrating their shortcomings. Another fundamental issue relates to the diverging scales of derivation and application, whereby PTFs are derived based on laboratory measurements while often being applied at the field to regional scales. Scaling, modulation, and constraining strategies exist to alleviate some of these shortcomings in the mismatch between scales. These aspects are addressed here in a joint effort by the members of the International Soil Modelling Consortium (ISMC) Pedotransfer Functions Working Group with the aim of systematising PTF research and providing a roadmap guiding both PTF development and use. We close with a 10-point catalogue for funders and researchers to guide review processes and research.