| Summary: | International audience Meteorology is the main driving force of hydrology along time, from the instantaneous states and processes until the monthly, seasonal, yearly, and sometimes multiyear sequences. Meteorology drives and impacts much of the hydrological flows and storages, thus water balance terms as well as hazards, across a geometric and functional interface. This interface develops within a certain thickness, yet thin regarding the planetary radius and critical for water and other dynamics. This heterogeneous Critical Zone ranges from the bottom of groundwater reservoirs to the top of the tree canopy [1], including surface water liquid and frozen and gaseous flows and storages. Complex space-time effects develop in this critical zone such as orographic and oceanic influences on moisture-precipitation dynamics, hydrogeomorphological structure-function relationships, upstream-downstream integration, subsystems connectivities, variability interdependences, and scaling issues [2–6]. In some geographic settings, this critical zone is further complexified by extreme conditions of some of the properties, such as dryness or wetness, groundwater geometries and dynamics, cryospheric developments (snow, ice, and permafrost), soil and land covers, water uses, and concentration of water-driven chemicals.
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