AquaDiva science movie
The Earth's Critical Zone (CZ) is the thin, living, and permeable layer that connects the atmosphere with the geosphere, and provides the living environment for most terrestrial biota. Humans live in the CZ, and benefit from the vital services it provides, including clean water resources. Pollution, land-use, and climate change increasingly alter the surface compartments of the CZ, but we have not yet explored this part of the earth enough to fully understand the consequences for the subsurface, the zone beginning below the highest density of plant roots and extending into the aquifers.
The Collaborative Research Centre 1076, including Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU), Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry Jena (MPI-BGC), Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ and Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (IPHT) aims at increasing our understanding of the links between surface and subsurface CZ, especially how organisms inhabiting the subsurface reflect and influence their physical, ecological, and geochemical environment, and affect water and matter transiting the CZ.