​Dr. Doerthe Tetzlaff is a Professor in Ecohydrology at the Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin and Head of Department “Ecohydrology” at IGB Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany. She is also a Fellow of AGU, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and an Honorary Fellow of GSA. 

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
The integrating concept of ecohydrology fascinates me. For me ecohydrology is the connection between landscapes and riverscapes, i.e aquatic and terrestrial ecohydrology. It is interesting to see how separated the aquatic and terrestrial ecohydrology communities often still are and operate. To be able to understand what happens in our rivers and lakes we - of course - have to understand the processes in the landscape; both landscape and riverscape are closely intertwined. So, to me ecohydrology means to better understand the spatio-temporal variability of the aquatic and terrestrial ecohydrological connections and the “behaviour” of catchments.
 
What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I have an undergraduate degree in Geography from the University of Potsdam, Germany, a MSc (or Diploma) in Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology from the University of Hannover, Germany. I did my PhD in Hydrology at the University of Freiburg, Germany. So, I have quite a “blue water” background but since my Postdoc I got to know about “green water” fluxes as well.  
 
How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
During my PhD I conducted an ecohydrological assessment of urbanization effects on discharge regimes. However, I really got pulled into (aquatic) ecohydrology when I started my postdoc in Scotland when I saw my first Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) jumping up large rocky barriers back to its spawning ground which was simply amazing. So my first ecohydrological work examined hydraulic and hydrological influences on the ecology of different life stages of Atlantic salmon. I then extended this work to explore the utility of the concept of connectivity between landscapes and riverscapes, showing the effects of catchment-scale hydrological processes on the migratory movement of adult salmon. In parallel with my aquatic ecology research, I became increasingly involved in stable isotope hydrology that has sought to understand the influence of landscape controls on (eco)hydrological flow paths and the transit times of water in different catchments, as well as the interlinkages with and effects on the terrestrial and aquatic biota. Recently, my work centered on contextualizing findings more broadly into the relationship between structure and function of catchments; their response to climate change and how the ecohydrological implications differ across catchments.
 
What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
There are still so many ecohydrological processes which we are just beginning to understand. Some of these processes – which might occur at very high temporal resolution or high frequency – we might even just begin to be able to actually measure with new sensor and in-situ technology. But one of the big emerging research areas I see is the ecohydrology of urban areas. Urbanization is increasing world wide, and urban systems are even more complex than “natural” catchments. Urban systems are “artificial catchments”, which have profoundly different dynamics compared to natural systems. Monitoring is often limited in urban settings (due to vandalism and access limitations). So, understanding ecohydrological couplings and connectivity in an urban context; that’s still a major emerging area in my point of view. There is still so much to learn and find out about urban ecosystems.
 
Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
My favorite ecohydrology paper which I still cite very often is an Invited Commentary published by Catherine Pringle in Hydrological Processes in 2003 (already!) on “What is hydrologic connectivity and why is it ecologically important?" It nicely explains the concept and need of interdisciplinarity and also highlights emerging issues of global concerns – many of them still very much hot topics still today.
 
What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
Fortunately, our area of research always gives us a wonderful “excuse” to spend a lot of time in and with nature and water – and that’s what I love to do for fun. I love running and road cycling. Now, we are a couple of two professors in two different countries and our family splits their time between our new home in Berlin and Scotland. Berlin is such a green big city, with loads of green spaces and lakes and rivers to swim in (and wonderful to study urban ecohydrology). And Scotland of course has its mindblowing landscape of rivers and mountains. I feel extremely lucky to be able to have the best of these two worlds. Yoga and Pilates also is fun. 

Dr. Alexandra Konings is an assistant professor in Earth System Science at Stanford University/

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Insofar as hydrology is the study of the distribution and movement of water, ecohydrology, at its simplest, studies how water’s distribution affects ecosystems and vice versa how ecosystems affect water. That is reductionistic, but I take a very broad view of this definition – soils, the atmosphere urban landscapes, anthropenic influences, etc fit into ecohydrology as well. Perhaps more broadly, I think of ecohydrology as a relatively interdisciplinary study of how water, plants, and living things all are coupled and affect each other in multiple, usually interactive, ways.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I have an undergraduate degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from MIT, a MS in environmental science from Duke University, and my PhD is also in environmental engineering from MIT.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
I studied environmental engineering as an undergraduate after getting disillusioned from my original physics major. At the time, hydrology seemed to me to be the most ‘physics-y’ corner of environmental engineering…but a few years of undergraduate study later, I found myself wishing I knew more about the biological aspects of plants and how that would affect my view of what hydrology was. I spent a few fun years working with Gaby Katul at Duke on a variety of projects across hydrologic fields. While I didn’t think of myself as doing ecohydrology at the time, I absorbed some of the great ecohydrological thinking being done around me in the Nicholas School of the Environment. However, I really missed Cambridge and Boston, so I returned to MIT after a few years. After a PhD with Dara Entekhabi that was largely focused on my first love of microwave remote sensing, I’ve enjoyed bringing my fascination with plants back and applying the tools of remote sensing to various ecohydrological problems.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
Alfredo Huete answered similarly a few months ago, but one exciting emerging area is the use of all the new satellite data that are starting to come online. That includes totally new types of data from new flagship NASA sensors like GEDI, (canopy height and biomass), TROPOMI (solar-induced fluorescence), SWOT (surface water extent and estimates of discharge), or even ECOSTRESS (land surface temperature and thus, estimates of ET). Cubesat data at few-meter resolution have also become dramatically more available in recent years. This is all very exciting and there is lots of great science to be done. But there is such a rapid increase in data availability that we will need to develop new ways of interacting with and analyzing this exponential increase in data. It will be important to learn from ‘big data science’ while still saying grounded in biogeophysical understanding. While doing so, as a community, we will especially have to reckon with the fact that we have a wealth of remote sensing observations about aboveground processes, but that belowground process remain mostly unseen by satellites.
 
Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
This feels like picking the best day I’ve ever had. There are so many great ones. I honestly can’t pick a single most favorite, but I’ll highlight a relatively recent one that I really like and isn’t as commonly appreciated: Crow et al’s 2015 GRL paper: “Robust estimates of soil moisture and latent heat flux coupling strength obtained from triple collocation”. This paper modifies a technique known as ‘triple collocation’ to figure out how strongly coupled soil moisture and evapotranspiration are across different Fluxnet sites….but with a careful accounting for the unknown random errors in measurements that turn out to distort a naïve calculation of correlations. It’s extremely elegant and satisfying.
 
What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I am glad this question points out that ecohydrology *is* a lot of fun! I also try to regularly participate in outdoor activities: hiking, biking, and occasionally climbing. But mostly I spend a lot of time with friends and family. Like many junior faculty at Stanford, I live on land leased from the university to reduce costs in the expensive Silicon Valley area. That feels a bit strange philosophically, but a positive side effect is that many of our closest friends live only about a minute’s walk away – making it easy to spend time with a close community. 

Dr. Anne Jefferson is an Associate Professor at Kent State University in the Department of Geology (@highlyanne on Twitter).

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
To me, ecohydrology is the study of the interactions between living systems and the hydrosphere. These interactions could be happening within or because of a single plant, animal, or microbe or they could be ecosystem-scale or watershed-scale processes. Ecohydrology synthesizes concepts from hydrology and ecology to approach problems that can’t be understood from a single disciplinary perspective. 

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I have an undergraduate degree in Earth and Planetary Science from The Johns Hopkins University, a MS in Water Resources Science from the University of Minnesota, and a PhD in Geology from Oregon State University.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
To some extent, I blame my mother! She is a retired plant ecologist, and she worked in environments ranging from salt marshes and floodplains to goat prairies (really neat dry prairie ecosystems found on south facing slopes along the Upper Mississippi River valley). So I grew up being exposed to ecological ideas and how ecosystems interacted with water. My own research adventures began with the 1993 flood on the Mississippi River, and my bent is more physical processes than ecology, but the interactions between the physical and ecological are everywhere I look.

For the last 10 years, my research has focused on water in human-altered environments, especially cities. I look at how stormwater management and environmental restoration alter partitioning of flow between the surface and subsurface, change flow regimes and erosion patterns, and alter ecosystem processes. Right now, I have a really cool project in Cuyahoga Valley National Park looking at how a restoration practice called deep ripping might enable reforestation of abandoned mine sites by changing preferential flow paths – and, in turn, how the young trees might start to influence soil development and hydrology as they become more established.
 
But it’s maybe only in the past few years that I’ve come to admit that I am (at least in part) an ecohydrologist. Participating in a HydroEco conference a few years ago really opened my eyes to ecohydrology as a broad tent of perspectives and approaches. I realized that I had a misconception of ecohydrology as this very narrow field, when, in fact, much of what I do could be considered ecohydrology, 

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
I’d be remiss if I didn’t say urban ecohydrology! I think there’s a lot of really cool work starting to be done on hydroecological processes happening in cities – from how disconnecting downspouts alters net primary productivity to how planting street trees can help manage stormwater. That’s just two examples and I think we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of understanding how ecohydrological processes work in urban environments – and how we can use these processes to make our cities greener, healthier, and happier. As we start to weave engineered infrastructure and social systems into our ecohydrology research, I think we’re going to see lots of exciting ideas emerge. 

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
I’ve really been enjoying following the literature on “ecohydrological separation” or the “two water worlds.” These terms capture the idea that trees may not be accessing the same subsurface water as streams do and that when we sample stream water and infer catchment transit times, we may be missing a big piece of the story. I’m hoping that as my National Park trees get older, that I’ll be able to contribute more to this literature myself. But for now, I’ve got to point to the Brooks et al. (2010) paper (https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo722) that did such a nice job of stimulating a decade of work. 

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I have two kids (5, 13), a partner, and a dog, and my family and I love hiking. I was on sabbatical in Colorado this fall and it was great to have new trails to explore every week. My 5 year old did 6 miles of gentle grade above 11,000 feet! We also like musical theater, museums, and other cultural activities – as well as just quiet days spent pursuing our own interests at home. 

When I’m not spending time with my family, I really like mentoring students on research projects, creating interactive learning opportunities in my classes, and doing public engagement activities to share my love of science. I’ve also been trying to spend more time volunteering for causes I support. 

Dr. D. Scott Mackay is a Professor in the Department of Geography & Department of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo. 

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
For me ecohydrology is an expansive concept that has developed in multiple fields and formed a convergence of science around theory and methodology involving the interactions between water and living things. During my research leave last year I dove into the origins and spread of ecohydrology. This exploration took me through several thousand articles spanning more than a century, multiple disciplines, and wide range of spatial and temporal scales. From botanists Dixon’s and Joly’s 1895 theory on ascent of sap in plants, to hydrologist Robert Horton’s 1933 call for more attention to plant-water relations, to Peter Eagleson’s 1982 reintroduction of ecohydrology to hydrologists, to the recent emergence of co-evolution of vegetation and landforms, ecohydrology has a rich and, in retrospect, a straightforward evolution. But ecohydrology emerged in many places, with its earliest mention by name in contexts such as form and function of peatlands, forest decline from soil acidification, and sustainable use of aquatic resources. Regardless of flavor and origin, what underlies ecohydrology is a solid foundation on systems concepts.   

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
My undergraduate degree was called Biophysical Systems, but it was primarily geomorphology, climatology, a little biology, quite a lot of computer science, and a ton of systems concepts. For my MSc degree, I did physical geography, developing an automated digital terrain analysis system based on early artificial intelligence theory. My PhD was in Civil Engineering, where I developed models on the dynamic interaction between forested vegetation and watershed hydrology. All my degrees were from the University of Toronto.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
I arrived at thinking about ecohydrology in the early 1990s when I was at the start of my PhD program. A post doc in our lab, an ecologist/meteorologist, put me onto the concept of ecological optimality, which helped me connect a lot of disparate ideas and set me on the winding path towards my dissertation on dynamic hydroecological modeling. 

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
I see the belowground frontier as an important emerging area of ecohydrology. While the subsurface interactions between abiotic and biotic processes has been considered a critical zone for a long time, there is a convergence of new sensors, tracer methodologies, and sophisticated biophysical models that collectively make the belowground more transparent. Ecohydrology’s strong foundation on systems concepts will be vital to putting the pieces together to form a coherent belowground picture.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
For me, the “a ha” moment I had as a graduate student was when I first read Peter Eagleson’s 1982 paper on Ecological optimality in water-limited natural soil-vegetation systems. While this paper has been reinterpreted, built on, sometimes misunderstood, sometimes maligned, but often cited, for me it remains my favorite paper as a tour de force in conceptual thinking. It is always required reading in my graduate course titled “Ecohydrology.”

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
Whenever I have the opportunity I like to hike. Hiking help me take my mind off those things that make it hard to be creative, which helps me think about new concepts, algorithms, etc. Also, a few years ago I rehabbed my stereo turntable and re-engaged with an old hobby of collecting vinyl records and listening to music as whole creative entities rather than lists of songs in a digital playlist. 

​Dr. Lauren Lowman is an Assistant Professor in the Engineering Department at Wake Forest University.

Dr. John C. Stella is a Professor in the Department of Sustainable Resources Management at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Dr. Kyotaek Hwang is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Geology at Wayne State University.

Andrew Murray is a graduate student at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
For me, ecohydrology describes the intersection of the water cycle with both the physical and biological environment. I think of watersheds as the units for ecohydrology and tend to look for ways to scale up to the region and look for similarities and differences across space. I have always been fascinated by the way water moves across the landscape, and how it is capable of both staying put for thousands of years or traversing thousands of miles. Specifically, I think mostly about the ways in which carbon interacts with water and how streams contribute carbon to the atmosphere.
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What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I hold a B.A. and an M.A. in Geography which I received from the University of Cincinnati in 2012 and 2015 respectively. I am currently working towards my Ph.D. in Geography at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
About a year and a half ago I started working on researching carbon fluxes and streams with my advisor, which is when I first started contextualizing my work as being under the umbrella of ecohydrology. However, I trace my interest in researching water to high school where I was required to take a field methods course that I really did not want to take. I ended up loving the course and designing my own final project studying water quality in Philadelphia streams. The next year I took A.P. Environmental Science and pretty much knew I was going to do something with water. I also grew up playing in the stream in the woods across the street from my house and always wonder if that had some sort of lasting impact!

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
As a geographer I’m always interested in the spatial aspect of hydrology. My first thought whenever I am looking at new data always goes towards how I can apply this to a larger area and give it greater relevance. At the same time, I try to remain mindful of the dangers of making grandiose statements based on limited data. That being said, I am looking forward to the growth of spatial models in ecohydrology, especially regarding machine learning. Data is becoming more and more accessible making research we once thought impossible a real possibility.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
While not technically focused on ecohydrology: Jones, N. L., Wright, S. G., & Maidment, D. R. (1990). Watershed delineation with triangle-based terrain models. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 116(10), 1232-1251. This was one of the first things I read in a digital terrain course I took as an undergraduate that sparked my interest in watershed and computational hydrology, certainly helping me on my course to where I am today. I have always been impressed by the power of modelling the natural environment.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
When I’m not on campus you might find me with my wife and son at one of the many playgrounds around Chapel Hill or at Durham’s museum of life and science. I also like to spend time in the White Mountains in New Hampshire and I’m a big ice-hockey fan, Go Flyers!

Dr. Alfredo Huete is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia.  He leads the Ecosystem Dynamics Health and Resilience research program within the School of Life Sciences.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
I think of ecohydrology mainly from the perspective of mechanistically linking vegetation responses to climate variability, such as through trends in water availability, water-use efficiencies, and/or increasing temperatures.  Through my interest in remote sensing, I tend to look at larger scale ecohydrology processes to assess vegetation response rates of different ecosystems to climate variability and extreme events (drought & wet cycles).   Satellite data can reveal useful geospatial information on vegetation dynamics and allow us to assess, pixel by pixel, vegetation productivity at weekly intervals in relation to climate information.  Relative vegetation responses to the same climate inputs can then be used to identify ecologically sensitive areas as well as resilient, or more buffered vegetation areas.  Of course, the best value of satellite data is achieved when coupled with ground information, such as from flux tower sites.  By under­standing vegetation’s responses to current and historical climate variability we can improve predictions of the future consequences of climate change at ecosystem scales and forecast ecosystem collapse and forest mortality.  
 
What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I received my BSc in Range Management at the University of Arizona in Tucson, after transferring there in my third year of undergraduate studies following the closure of Prescott College in Prescott, Arizona.  I then went to the University of California- Berkeley and completed a MSc in Soil & Plant Biology.  My supervisor was John McColl and my thesis investigated ‘acid rain’ leaching through a series of soils.  After being introduced to a forensics course at UC Berkeley, I became interested in remote sensing and environmental forensics and returned to the University of Arizona to work under Ray Jackson and Don Post in remote sensing.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
My degrees in soil, water, and plants and subsequent involvement in remote sensing gradually drew me to the field of ecohydrology.  My Ph.D was a ground-based remote sensing study in cotton fields of the U.S Water Conservation Lab in Phoenix, Arizona under the mentorship of Ray Jackson.  The Lab was at the forefront of water conservation and remote sensing.  Then, as an early career scientist, I completed two summer internships at NASA/ GSFC in Maryland, in which my mission was to translate my knowledge of remote sensing in cotton fields to satellites. This led to my becoming a science team member of the forthcoming NASA-MODIS program. Through this satellite program I once again became involved in field work, as part of satellite algorithm global validation work of the satellite vegetation products I was involved in. 

I was very surprised at how well our satellite vegetation products, such as vegetation indices, could approximate the seasonality of carbon and water fluxes from Fluxnet.  This was true in water-limited semi-arid regions as well as radiation-limited environments as in equatorial Amazon rainforests (although not always true in temperature-limited biomes).  This convinced me that satellite data can be directly used in ecohydrologic studies of the earth system, enabling the Earth to be used as a living lab from which to test hypotheses on climate- vegetation interactions.  From this I have made many satellite phenology studies which I have linked to field ecohydrology, whether through situ flux tower measures, phenocams, or in situ measurements with spectroradiometers.
 
What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
Ecohydrology has a lot to contribute to climate change research in order for us to understand the rapid changes taking place in seasonally dry ecosystems through the earth.  Understanding changes in vegetation phenology, biodiversity, and productivity can benefit from an ecohydrological understanding of the mechanisms and drivers at play.  Further, ecological forecasting of ecosystem resilience, tree mortality, and land degradation, amidst climate change, benefits from the ecohydrological approach.   
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I am particularly excited with the new and advanced satellite missions, such as the geostationary satellite systems, that have started imaging the earth’s surface, from a fixed point in the sky, continuously at 10 minute intervals.  This massive amount of publicly available free data has opened the doors to conduct ecosystem assessments at diurnal scales, e.g., land surface temperatures and aerosols, that can be coupled to flux tower sites and air quality stations. Other new satellite sensor systems, such as the Soil Moisture Active-Passive (SMAP) satellite, the LiDAR measuring Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), and Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2), provide rich and new opportunities to conduct macro-ecohydrology studies at global scales, providing direct measurements of water and carbon in the biosphere and atmosphere.
 
Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
I’ve always been fond of the book by Hans Jenny, “Factors of Soil Formation: A System of Quantitative Pedology”, 1942. Its one of the earliest approaches to Earth System Science, and the 5 factors driving soil formation apply to ecosystem formation and drivers of change.  I also got to know Hans Jenny at UC Berkeley, while a graduate student. He was quiet a remarkable scientist.
 
What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I like my tree-house style home in northern Sydney, where I go jogging long distances for relaxation and ‘me time’, and on weekends go hiking with family and friends along forest, canyon, and urban trails. At home, I work in the yard doing landscaping and growing vegetables, especially hot chillies.  Bird watching is fun with all the colorful parrots, kookaburras, cockatoos and magpies.  Finally, I have highly talented musical children that keep me busy following their performances in orchestras and string bands throughout the city.

Dr. Benjamin Runkle is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological & Agricultural Engineering at the University of Arkansas.

​What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Ecohydrology represents the bi-directional interaction of the biosphere and the hydrosphere. The more I research the more I see connections between the carbon and water cycles. I study rice fields and their water use and generation of the greenhouse gas methane. Rice has evolved to be flood tolerant, so the fields are flooded to outwit the weeds. Under the anoxic soil conditions, microbes have to develop and end up producing CH4 rather than CO2, so there is a more potent greenhouse gas coming off these fields as a second or third order consequence to this old weed-prevention mechanism. Fortunately, modern rice varieties and careful farm management allow introducing deliberate dry periods and we can dampen CH4 production without bringing on too many weeds or disturbing our rice production. The field becomes an eco-hydrological system under our investigation, and that framing helps in understanding its processes.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
My degrees are all in Civil & Environmental Engineering. I studied environmental engineering out of an interest in nature and water and how to help with the various water issues that affect the world. I had no idea where it would lead me! I now very much enjoying working in a Department of Biological & Agricultural Engineering. At Arkansas we focus our department on the sustainability of our food, energy, and water systems. 

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
Two of my favorite course in college were “Global Biogeochemical Cycles” and “Ecohydrology”. I realized then that the interfaces of disciplines provide a particularly fascinating space of inquiry. Hydrology is a critical ecological and evolutionary driver; vegetation can also help determine its local hydrology.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
I believe applied ecohydrology will become increasing critical – such as our work in agro-ecosystem management. To perform any kind of ‘natural carbon solution’ as part of the toolbox against climate change, we need to have a systems perspective on the landscape – one that accounts for ecological and hydrological implications and their interactions. For example plans to plant millions of trees must account for water availability, changes to agricultural systems must consider both photosynthesis and transpiration, and those who re-wet peatlands must account for the special relationship between moss growth and water levels.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
I’ve always enjoyed the perspectives of my undergraduate Ecohydrology professor, Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe. His wonderful piece in WRR in 2000 was written around the time of that course, and its outlook is still so relevant in its emphasis on soil moisture dynamics and the vegetative needs that both derive from and generate that change: Rodriguez-Iturbe, 2000, Ecohydrology: A hydrologic perspective of climate‐soil‐vegetation dynamics, Water Resources Research, 36(1), 3-9, https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/1999WR900210.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I really do like water: I enjoy swimming for exercise and relaxation. I’ve recently started doing some yoga and enjoy the calming benefits of that kind of directed stretching and meditation. About a year ago I also picked up an electronic keyboard and enjoy playing a few songs – my husband’s a punk rock musician and it’s great gift to enjoy music together.