The Critical Zone is the Earth's outer skin, where we all live: the space between the top of the vegetation canopy and the bottom of the surface aquifers, down to the undisturbed rock. It's a very thin layer, where rock meets life, and it is essentially the support system for all terrestrial ecosystems. It's called the Critical Zone because it's critical to ecosystem functioning but it's also critically endangered. Climate change, increases in temperature, pollution, land degradation and invasive alien species are all anthropogenic pressures that are impacting the moisture levels and carbon fluxes, biodiversity, and the integrity of the ecosystem, with devastating effects also on agriculture.  The difficulties we face in the Critical Zone and what we are doing to monitor and model critical zone dynamics are addressed by Antonello Provenzale, Director of Institute of Geoscience at CNR, the Italian National Research Council, and Head of the Joint Research Unit of LifeWatch Italy.