20.500.12556/DiRROS-28487 Integrated multi-scale ecohydrogeological monitoring of spatio-temporal dynamics in karst critical zones Contemporary environmental concerns highlight the vulnerability of karst environments to changing hydrometeorological patterns and vegetation disturbance, necessitating a unified, interdisciplinary strategy for comprehensive understanding. This paper critically examines the current state of research. To overcome the identified gaps, it presents an integrated multi-scale ecohydrogeological monitoring approach tailored to karst critical zones (KCZ) and its spatio-temporal variability. Forested karst aquifer in Slovenia is used as a case study to demonstrate and assess the strengths and limitations of the proposed monitoring framework. To decipher flow dynamics and propose customized data collection strategies the approach combines surface and underground sites and employs advanced methods adapted to the challenges of karst environments. The results highlight the benefits and advancements of monitoring and sampling approaches to ensure representativeness in heterogeneous environments. The focus is on the use of enhanced precipitation monitoring systems to expand sampling areas nearly fivefold and improve precipitation and throughfall measurements. Additionally, customized lysimeter techniques for karst soils and microscale adaptations for cave exploration have been developed, addressing the challenges of instrument placement in environments with significant variability. Further opportunities lie in improving instrument protection, integrating sensor networks, combining remote sensing and scaling from plot to aquifer level. However, challenges remain in achieving spatio-temporal representativeness and ensuring the operational reliability of snow monitoring, soil solution sampling and drip flow measurements. Threats include environmental pressures and hydrometeorological conditions, equipment tampering and funding stability. Nevertheless, this comprehensive approach improves monitoring of ecohydrogeological processes in the KCZ, promotes interdisciplinary collaboration and environmental resource management. Karst integrated monitoring interdisciplinary strategy hydrological processes environmental management ecohydrology true false true Angleški jezik Ni določen © 2026 The Authors Neznano 2026-03-21 20:21:39 2026-03-21 20:21:40 2026-05-09 09:26:27 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2026 0 0 19 str. [article no.] ǂ135027 Vol. 669 Apr. 2026 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno apc 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 2026-02-02 556.3:551.444 0022-1694 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2026.135027 271325955 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022169426001241?via%3Dihub 1 32607ce4-255b-11f1-aa40-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=42227 1-s2.0-S0022169426001241-main.pdf 1-s2.0-S0022169426001241-main.pdf 1 53D4F6DEF376490B58FCAF5046C86A5F cce6623ba0d19293fbbb92e6658eb8fd9c84db83cd25b21eec4b71ebf8b73c68 f26d9e22-255d-11f1-aa40-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=42228 1-s2.0-S0022169426001241-mmc1.docx 1-s2.0-S0022169426001241-mmc1.docx Supplementary Data 1 4122BBCFA16CDE2C2158B06D43C6DBA5 6e1b2560cb4dfd1edb419dddab32c67110417438655766450904bc81c17a4d32 026255bb-255e-11f1-aa40-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=42229 Znanstvenoraziskovalni center Slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti 0 0 0