Václav Šípek (Institute of Hydrodynamics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic) is a hydrologist focusing on the role of vegetation in the water cycle of the forested environments. The primary interest is the quantification of water fluxes in forests (namely infiltration, interception, sap flow, soil evaporation and percolation) with the focus on differences between the main tree species (beech and spruce in our case) and on their behaviour in climate extremes (especially drought and excess precipitation). The reason behind is that ongoing changes in tree species composition might alter particular water fluxes resulting in the different availability of water. He is responsible for couple of sites in the Czech Republic monitoring soil moisture, sap flow, interception and also shallow subsurface flow.