Factors determining the soil available water during the last two decades (1997–2019) in southern Spain Sillero Medina, José A. Rodrigo Comino, Jesús Ruiz Sinoga, José D. Regional studies Climate change Mediterranean belt Soil dry periods Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Granada/CBUA. This study was part of the research project "Incidence of global change in contrasted Mediterranean landscapes," GLOMED-LAND (CSO2016-75898-P), funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Assessing soil hydrological conditions can provide essential information for understanding the environmental processes that affect ecosystem services and, particularly in the context of ongoing climate change. This is key in areas affected by water scarcity such as the Mediterranean belt. Therefore, the main goals of this research are (i) to assess the main rainfall dynamics and trends of some representative hotspots along with southern Spain and (ii) to determine the impact on the soil available water content (AWC) over the last two decades. An analysis of daily precipitation and soil hydrological conditions was combined with soil sampling (543) and laboratory analyses to evaluate the properties related to the soil infiltration and retention capacity. The results show that the organic factors control soil properties and their hydrodynamics in southern Spain. Furthermore, a general declining trend in soil water availability is observed over the last two decades. This is more extreme in arid and semi-arid areas, where there have been several years in the last decade with more than 200 days without the available water content. Moreover, in these areas, heavy rainfall during specific moments of the year is the key factor that manifests a greater incidence in areas with steeper slopes, which in turn, also conditions the biological factors and the hydrodynamics of the soil. In short, in the context of climate change, the analysis of soil hydrological dynamics could be used to identify biodiversity thresholds in the Mediterranean area and even to detect phenological changes in specific plant species. 2021-10-20T11:27:36Z 2021-10-20T11:27:36Z 2021-09-08 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Sillero-Medina, J.A., Rodrigo-Comino, J. & Ruiz-Sinoga, J.D. Factors determining the soil available water during the last two decades (1997–2019) in southern Spain. Arab J Geosci 14, 1971 (2021). [https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-08265-y] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/71016 10.1007/s12517-021-08265-y eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España Springer