Summer Course on Critical Zone and Ecosystem Dynamics
Ceresole Reale, Gran Paradiso National Park, Piedmont, Italy
10-18 July 2018
Deadline for applications: May 15th, 2018

www.to.isac.cnr.it/gpss

Directors:
Timothy White (The Pennsylvania State University, USA)
Antonello Provenzale (Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources, CNR, Pisa, Italy)

The Critical Zone (CZ) is the support system for all terrestrial ecosystems, extending from unweathered rock to the top of any vegetation canopy. In the CZ, physical, biological, geological and hydrological processes interact at multiple temporal and spatial scales.

This 9-day- long summer course intends to provide basic knowledge about the functioning of the Critical Zone and its relationships with ecosystem dynamics, focusing on aspects related to hydrology, soil geochemistry and weathering, vegetation dynamics and distribution, microbiota, biodiversity, ecosystem processes, CZ-relevant geological processes and the role of the CZ for achieving sustainable development goals. The course will consider in-situ data, long-term ecosystem research, chemical and isotopic laboratory analyses, remote sensing observations and numerical modeling, and it will include three days of field lectures, experimentation and excursions to study sites and CZ observatories in the Italian Alps.

The course is intended for Doctoral students, post-docs and researchers who are working or intend to work on Critical Zone processes and ecosystem dynamics. Lectures will be held in the main lecture hall of the Grand Hotel of Ceresole Reale in the Gran Paradiso National Park. The international Gran Paradiso Summer School on "Fundamental Processes in Earth System Dynamics" is organized by the Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources and by the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the Italian National Research Council, in collaboration with the Gran Paradiso National Park. The school ideally continues the tradition started with the "Alpine Summer School", active from 1994 to 2016.