Journal
ANNUAL REVIEW OF ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCES, VOL 46, 2021
Volume 46, Issue -, Pages 111-134Publisher
ANNUAL REVIEWS
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-125703
Keywords
cold regions; environmental change; critical zone; hydrogeology; biogeochemistry; agroecosystems
Categories
Funding
- University ofWaterloo's International Research Partnership Grants program
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [41521001]
- 111 Project of the Ministry of Education of China
- State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs [B18049]
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)
- Winter Soil Processes project of the Global Water Futures Program - Canada First Excellence Research Fund
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
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Global climate warming has disproportionately affected high-latitude and mountainous terrestrial ecosystems, leading to a range of environmental changes. This warming also exacerbates anthropogenic pressures in cold regions, emphasizing the need for improved predictive understanding of critical zone processes and ecosystem responses.
Global climate warming disproportionately affects high-latitude and mountainous terrestrial ecosystems. Warming is accompanied by permafrost thaw, shorter winters, earlier snowmelt, more intense soil freeze-thaw cycles, drier summers, and longer fire seasons. These environmental changes in turn impact surface water and groundwater flow regimes, water quality, greenhouse gas emissions, soil stability, vegetation cover, and soil (micro)biological communities. Warming also facilitates agricultural expansion, urban growth, and natural resource development, adding growing anthropogenic pressures to cold regions' landscapes, soil health, and biodiversity. Further advances in the predictive understanding of how cold regions' critical zone processes, functions, and ecosystem services will continue to respond to climate warming and land use changes require multiscale monitoring technologies coupled with integrated observational and modeling tools. We highlight some of the major challenges, knowledge gaps, and opportunities in cold region critical zone research, with an emphasis on subsurface processes and responses in both natural and agricultural ecosystems.
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