With the growing world’s population, the biggest challenge is to find alternatives to increase food production by optimising agricultural practices. Soil fertility is impacted by agricultural practices and it appears that some clay minerals have interesting properties that would help to remedy this. Clay minerals can be thus easily used as soil amendment to enhanced plant development and therefore culture yields.

Rainfall simulators have become an important tool in hydrological and geotechnical studies, assisting in engineering and agricultural projects. In this paper, numerical and physical modelling of an unsaturated exposed soil using a rainfall simulator is presented. The results will help in understanding the scale effect of soil simulation, as well as understanding the behaviour of soil subjected to different rainfall events.

We evaluated the epigeal fauna in Caatinga forest restoration. Areas planted with native species benefit organisms that feed on microorganisms and organic matter, and areas of natural regeneration benefit herbivorous organisms. In short-term reforestation in the Caatinga, conventional planting is beneficial to epigeal fauna.

Hydropedology bridges between the disciplines of pedology and hydrology, dealing with interactions and interrelations between pedologic and hydrologic processes in the Earth’s Critical Zone. A multivariate analysis of hydropedologically significant soil morphometric and parametric attributes resulted in important quantitative information on hydropedology–hillslope interrelations. The results provided significant statistical implications, which enhanced our conceptualisation on application of pedometrics to hillslope hydropedology.