FOREST EDGES AND THE SOIL-VEGETATION-ATMOSPHERE INTERACTION AT THE LANDSCAPE SCALE - THE STATE OF AFFAIRS

Although the soil-vegetation-atmosphere exchange of momentum and heat is fairly well understood for many types of homogeneous surfaces, the disturbances created by transitions of one surface type to another rem ain to be analysed more fully. This is especially true for the impact which a large transition such as the forest edge has on the average fl uxes in a small-scale heterogeneous landscape with forest. Recently ac quired experimental evidence appears to some extent contradictory and at variance with conventional concepts.