Announcement of a symposium at the 2011 European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria (3–8 April).

Complexity and nonlinearity in soils

Convener: Ana Maria Tarquis

Co-Conveners: Edith Perrier, RM Lark , Ruth E Falconer , Daniel Gimenez

Soil is not only a support for vegetation, but it is also the zone of numerous interactions between the mineral material of the original and added rock, soil life (micro-organisms, plants, animals), climate (water, air, temperature), and its position in the landscape. Due to these various processes associated to its formation and genesis soil dynamics reveals high complexity that creates several levels of structure using this term in a broad sense. Soil complexity can thus be observed at different physical levels (i.e., frequency distribution of aggregates sizes, order of strata, etc.), biological levels (i.e., oxidable organic matter availability, population distribution, etc.), interaction levels (i.e. mineral paths between compartments, etc.), or evolutionary levels (short-term variations on water availability, long term erosion, etc.). In this session, we invite contributions related to the modeling and quantification of these systems that provide an improved understanding. We especially encourage studies using an integrated, cross-disciplinary approach, whether based on statistical approaches that allow for scaling behavior analysis, on fully formulated physical-biogeochemical models or on other methods and techniques of complex systems science, such as statistical learning, data mining, time series analysis, network analysis, cellular automata, fractal/multifractals, wavelets, genetic algorithms and graph theory. Abstracts are invited for oral and poster presentation. Further information on the EGU General Assembly and links for abstract submission can be found at http://meetings.copernicus.org/egu2011/