A review of soil moisture dynamics: From rainfall infiltration to ecosystem response

In this paper we briefly review some aspects of the soil water balance, highlighting the possible connections and feedbacks among the various processes as well as pointing out the manifold repercussions of soil moisture dynamics on vegetation response and biogeochemical cycles. The discussion is not intended to be complete and reflects the authors' interests, but we hope that it may be helpful to highlight the multidisciplinary nature of the hydrologic research as well as to suggest useful avenues for an improved and coherent description of the realm of the phenomena that are controlled by the apparently simple fact that water incessantly moves through the soils.