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Water potential directly controls the function of leaves, roots, and microbes, and gradients in water potential drive water flows throughout the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. Notwithstanding its clear relevance for many ecosystem processes, soil water potential is rarely measured in-situ, and plant water potential observations are generally discrete, sparse, and not yet aggregated into accessible databases. These gaps limit our conceptual understanding of biophysical responses to moisture stress and inject large uncertainty into hydrologic and land surface models. Here, we outline the conceptual and predictive gains that could be made with more continuous and discoverable observations of water potential in soils and plants. We discuss improvements to sensor technologies that facilitate in situ characterization of water potential, as well as strategies for building new networks that aggregate water potential data across sites. We end by highlighting novel opportunities for linking more representative site-level observations of water potential to remotely-sensed proxies. Together, these considerations offer a roadmap for clearer links between ecohydrological processes and the water potential gradients that have the 'potential' to substantially reduce conceptual and modeling uncertainties.

This article tackles the question of whether financialisation is present in the Chinese economy by analysing two key transformations of the country's financial system. The first was a state-led reform process through which the Chinese financial system introduced market practices, similarly to the rest of the economy. The second was a market-led process, reflected in the emergence and rise of shadow banking, which originates from within financial markets with the aim of bypassing loan restrictions. The article shows that despite the two transformations and the enormous growth of finance during the past four decades, the underlying character of the Chinese financial system exhibits remarkable continuity. Namely, it remains bank based – albeit partially liberalised – with a predominant role for bank credit and a strong presence for the state. The relational and government-controlled structures of Chinese finance have not been replaced by arm's length and private mechanisms. On these grounds, it is premature to consider the Chinese economy to be financialised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the nature of nitrogen cycling, policies designed to address water quality concerns have the potential to provide benefits beyond the targeted water quality improvements. For example, actions to protect water quality by reducing nitrate leaching from agriculture also reduce emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. These positive effects, which are incidental to the regulation's intended target, are termed "co‐benefits." To quantify the co‐benefits associated with reduced nitrate leaching, we integrate an economic model of farmer decision making with a model of terrestrial nitrogen cycling for the watershed surrounding Lake Mendota, Wisconsin, USA. Our modeling approach provides a framework that links air and water pollutants in an agri‐environmental system and offers a direction for future studies. Our model results highlight the finding that the co‐benefits from nitrous oxide abatement are substantial, and their inclusion increases the benefit–cost ratio of water quality policies. Consideration of these co‐benefits has the potential to reverse the conclusions of benefit–cost analysis in the assessment of current water quality policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatiotemporal heterogeneity in soil CO2 efflux (FS) underlies one of our greatest gaps in understanding global carbon (C) cycles. Though scientists recognize this heterogeneity, FS sampling schemes often average across spatial heterogeneity or fail to capture fine temporal heterogeneity, and many ecosystem models assume flat terrain. Here, we test the idea that simple, remotely sensible terrain variables improve regression models of spatiotemporal variation in FS. We used automatic chambers that, for the first time, capture FS in complex temperate forest terrain at fine temporal resolution with 177,477 hourly FS measurements at 8 locations from ridgetop to valley along planar and swale hillslopes, across three years ranging from dry to record wet precipitation. In two of these years, we measured FS weekly at 50 additional locations distributed across the 8-ha catchment. Growing season Fs estimates were 1.25 times greater when sampling hourly versus weekly. At ridgetops, growing season FS increased by an average of 463 gC m−2 180 day−1 (75.9%) from dry to wet years, while valleys decreased by 208 gC m−2 180 day−1 (− 20.1%). This bidirectional response to interannual moisture was identified in distinct Random Forest models of Fs for convergent (water accumulating) or non-convergent (water shedding) hillslope positions. We hypothesize that different FS constraints drive these opposing responses—water availably to biota limits FS from ridgetops while slow oxygen diffusion limits FS from wet valleys. Accounting for hillslope position and shape reduces variance of FS estimates in complex terrain, which could improve FS sampling, C budgets, and modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]