Blog: Adding our Leaves

MEET A LEAF: Anne Verhoef

1/18/2021

Dr. Anne Verhoef is a Professor in Soil Physics and Micrometeorology in Department of Geography and Environmental Science, The University of Reading, United Kingdom.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
I must admit I rarely call myself an ecohydrologist, or a hydrologist for that matter, despite the fact that a large part of my research looks at the interactions and feedbacks between ecological processes and the hydrological cycle. Nor do I seek out ecohydrological conferences or workshops: I am an omnivorous kind of scientist and anything goes as long as it touches upon the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum and how it interacts with the hydrological cycle.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I did a combined BSc/MSc degree in Soil Science, at the University of Wageningen, the Netherlands. I specialized in Soil Physics, because it immediately appealed to me with its clear links to hydrology, meteorology and ecology. I am one of those few lucky people who realized quite early on what their vocation was: I decided to study Soil Science when I was around 15 years old. My PhD was in Micrometeorology, also in Wageningen, under the supervision of Henk de Bruin. I was really interested in the interactions in the soil-plant-atmosphere system, so this seemed a logical next step in my scientific career.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
This really was during my PhD fieldwork in Central Spain and Niger, during the EFEDA (ECHIVAL Field Experiment in a Desertification Threatened Area) and HAPEX-Sahel (Hydrologic Atmospheric Pilot EXperiment in the Sahel) campaigns in 1991 and 1992, respectively. These were international studies with all kinds of scientists involved, including (ecohydrologists). We learned a great deal from each another and I have very fond memories of those campaigns and related workshops. More recently, I have greatly enjoyed working on the Oxford (UK) floodplains to study the sensitivity of communities of rare plant species, including the Snakeshead fritillary, to small changes in groundwater levels. I also had the privilege to be involved in a project on Caatinga dryland forest ecosystems in the semi-arid area of Northeastern Brazil. The intricate ways in which the many tree-and shrub species in these forests interact with the environment, in particular the very limited soil water stores, and with each other is fascinating. The big challenge is how to model this comprehensively.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
I am not an expert in this particular area, but the use of stable Isotopes in Ecohydrology have already brought us important new insights. Now the challenge lies in further developing and testing in situ methods (such as those that sample soil water vapor) to capture the temporal dynamics in the isotopic signature of the various hydrological compartments. Another challenge is how to incorporate this information reliably into ecohydrological and land surface models. I also think there is still scope for further exploring coupled heat and water transport experiments and related modelling, especially with distributed temperature sensing becoming more widely available.
Finally, models that use optimization theory and mechanistic approaches of plant water transport and photosynthesis will help us to get a better handle of the effects of plant water stress on vegetation functioning under changing climatic conditions.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
I rarely read pure ecohydrological papers, but there are a number written by Simone Fatichi and colleagues on ecohydrological modelling that I greatly enjoyed. I am more familiar with the seminal papers in the micrometeorological arena (e.g., on turbulence in plant canopies) that also cross over to plant physiology, such as those by Finnigan, McNaughton, Monteith and Raupach. The papers by J.R. Philip (1927-1999), an Australian soil physicist and hydrologist, are close to my heart because he made both his mark on micrometeorology (e.g., advection, evaporation, canopy resistances) as well as on soil physics (infiltration).

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
Unfortunately, there is generally very little time left for fun stuff, but I really enjoy hiking, brushing up on or learning new languages (this is also a good excuse to watch foreign-language Netflix series in the evenings), and anything to do with the architecture and applied arts of the Art Nouveau period.

0 Comments

MEET A LEAF: Arial Shogren

1/11/2021

0 Comments

Dr. Arial Shogren is an NSF Post-Doctoral Fellow for Research in Biology (PRFB) at Michigan State University & Visiting Scholar at the University of Alabama. @DrArialShogren

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
I love how broad and interdisciplinary the term “ecohydrology” is, hence the many definitions from other AGU Leafs that have been featured prior. To me, it is a field that describes the many ways that water and life interact, almost like describing the intricate moves or setting of a dance. Some scientists might describe the complex footwork (e.g., where water is moving, from plants, to within the hyporheic zone, to surface-water groundwater interactions), while others might characterize the music (e.g., how climatic conditions drive hydrologic and biogeochemical fluxes), or even focus on the dancers themselves (e.g., which solutes or materials are being transported and transformed). This is an imperfect analogy... But the point being that all together, these aspects generate a clearer vision of how the world works.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
Both of my degrees are in biology! I received my Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Vassar College, which is a small liberal arts college. I then pursued my Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at The University of Notre Dame.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
From a very young age, I knew I wanted to do something related to ecology, so I pursued biology degrees in undergrad and grad school. While ecology is my “bread and butter,” I started thinking about how hydrology influences and is influenced by ecology when I was a first year PhD student at Notre Dame. I started asking research questions about the abiotic and biotic conditions that drive material transport in stream reaches. While these questions were fundamentally ecological in nature, because the research setting was in flowing streams, I had to understand how and where water was moving. A significant part of my graduate training was understanding and applying the math behind stream spiraling and other transport models, which was a fun challenge. As a post-doc, I’ve gotten to expand these questions to a new system, but at the core of my research is using ecology and hydrology to unravel how their interactions manifest in rivers. And as I keep moving forward in my career, the research that I am passionate about falls somewhere in the interdisciplinary space between hydrology and ecology.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
One thing that I’ve learned during my time as a post-doc at MSU is to “mind the gap” – to find out what we as scientists might be missing by ignoring relevant spatial scales, under-studying certain periods of time, or by only using a single perspective to study a problem, for example. I think it’s important for ecohydrologist to ask “what are we missing?”. Not only does asking this question help present new ways to fill the evident knowledge and data gaps and improve our understanding of the “dance” I mentioned above, but it’s also an exciting way of finding new research topics and questions! It’s especially fruitful for focusing research efforts in remote or understudied regions, and finding new ways to solve problems.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
It’s hard to pick just one! Recently, I’ve been loving the paper in Geophysical Research Letters by Marinos et al. (2020): Is the River a Chemostat? I keep coming back to this manuscript as it empirically tests assumptions related to what is driving nutrient export. The paper elegantly shows that a combination of terrestrial/landscape and instream processes control nitrate export in the Mississippi River Basin, but that there’s scale-dependence on the patterns that you see at a watershed outlet. It’s an interesting take on where you measure determining your story.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
This is a great question. Like many other ecohydrologists, my science is inspired by what I do outside of work. I’m passionate about getting outside, I love hiking, cycling, paddling, running, etc. In the before-covid times, I’d road-trip across the country to visit state and national parks, always “river-necking” (looking at rivers from my car) along the way. With covid restricting travel and events this year, I’ve found a greater appreciation for my local surroundings, and exploring the beautiful places within a few hours of my home in Alabama. I also have three rescue dogs (Lolly, Lucy, and Lester), and they keep me entertained.

0 Comments

MEET A LEAF: W.J. "Jim" Shuttleworth

1/4/2021

0 Comments

Before his passing on December 20th 2020, Dr. W.J. “Jim” Shuttleworth was a Regents Professor Emeritus in the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona.
This leaf was drafted by Shirley Papuga (co-taught Practical and Applied Hydrometeorology with Jim at University of Arizona) and Rafael Rosolem (Jim’s final PhD student) in his honor.

Leave a memory here.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Jim considered himself a hydrometeorologist - linking climate science and weather prediction with hydrologic science. However, many of us remember Jim for his valuable contributions to the ecohydrology community. For example, Jim was instrumental in the development of Hydra, an early version of what is known these days as the “eddy covariance system” - one of our ecohydrological go-to tools for bridging hydrological and ecological processes. It was this system that enabled some of the early work on energy and water cycles linking eddy covariance data in the Amazon rainforest with land surface models that led to subsequent improvements in Global Climate Models.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
Jim received his Bachelors degree with honors in Physics in 1967, a U.S. Master’s equivalent (Dip. Adv. St. Sc.) with distinction in 1968, and his PhD in High-Energy Nuclear Physics in 1971, all from Manchester University.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
It was not long after receiving his PhD that Jim shifted to using the science and mathematics skills he developed studying high-energy physics to address questions in the hydrologic sciences. One of the first topics he tackled was evaporation. In their 1979 paper “Has the Priestley-Taylor Equation Any Relevance to Forest Evaporation?”, Jim with Ian Calder challenged “the indiscriminate use of the Priestly-Taylor hypothesis”, “a simple and easily calculable function of temperature and radiant energy, independent of precipitation and only weakly related to vegetation cover”. They used empirical datasets from two forest ecosystems to argue that vegetation, especially if it is tall, can have a significant impact on evaporative fluxes that are not reflected in the Priestly-Taylor or Penman formulas. This paper has helped set the stage for emphasizing to meteorologists, hydrologists, and water engineers the importance of vegetation in their applications.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
Even with a lifetime of continuous innovative disciplinary research contributions, probably one of the most important emerging areas that Jim had a major influence on was highlighting the importance of the interface between hydrology and other disciplines. His inclusive and curious approach to learning has helped develop a new generation of interdisciplinary scientists that have moved beyond their established boundaries by enabling them to incorporate hydrologic principles in broadening their thinking.

In 2006, Jim was recognized with the International Hydrology Prize. As part of his response to the award citation Jim stated: “If, as stated in the citation, I have helped to raise consciousness of the need to improve communication between the physical and biological sciences and the human sciences, and of the need for the directed deployment of hydrological understanding in support of societal needs, this is a further source of pride to me.” Our best guess is that Jim would argue that continuing to make progress in bridging hydrology and biology for addressing societal needs is an important emerging area of research.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
It is hard to choose a single paper from Jim’s vast contribution to the scientific community. His knowledge is for example well summarized for hydrologists in Chapter 4 of the Handbook of Hydrology, appropriately called “Evaporation”, or his more recent “Terrestrial Hydrometeorology” book, which became widely considered to be the definitive textbook on the subject. However, for us, the Shuttleworth et al. 1984 paper perhaps best captures the essence of Jim’s work and overall contribution to the community. Here is why:

First, it highlights the pioneering use of eddy correlation measurements for turbulent fluxes estimates in the Amazon rainforest. We are now used to easily accessing data from many flux sites across the whole world. Back in the 1980’s, this technology was still in its infancy, and setting up a field work in the Amazon forest was obviously challenging. Yet, despite all adversities, Shuttleworth et al. 1984 introduced the first 8 ‘golden’ days of measured fluxes from the Reserva Ducke near Manaus, Brazil. Up until then, most of these studies had occurred in temperate latitudes due to “finance and practicality” as stated in the paper. Below is the excerpt from the paper highlighting its key findings which are now well-accepted in ecohydrology:

“In the phraseology of classical hydrology, the experimental situation in which the data presented in this paper were gathered represents 'evaporation from a well-watered crop'. The meteorologist and hydrologist schooled in the concept of potential evaporation might therefore be surprised by the result (given in section 4(b)), that the fraction of incoming radiant energy used in evaporation for a transpiring forest canopy is around 0.7. To the forest hydrometeorologist this result is entirely plausible, and not unexpected (cf. Shuttleworth and Calder 1979). It reflects the fact that transpiring forest canopies exert significant surface control even when water is freely available in the soil.”

Secondly, the paper ends with a proposed working model of daily evaporation for forest surfaces. This reflects Jim’s contributions to both experimental and modeling aspects of hydrometeorology. Contributions like that ultimately led to multi-national collaborative projects such as the Anglo–Brazilian Amazonian Climate Observational Study (ABRACOS) and the Large-scale Biosphere-atmosphere experiment in Amazonia (LBA) projects, both with strong leadership contributions made by Jim.

Finally, the third reason is to highlight Jim’s ability to work internationally and to recognize his pivotal role in providing guidance and support to international colleagues and students, especially to the Brazilian community. Jim has certainly contributed to the career of many international scientists over the decades through his collaborations or by hosting and advising international students. Those who have worked closed with Jim always recognize his kindness, friendliness and supportive role as a collaborator, mentor, or advisor.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
It is clear to us from his words and actions that Jim was a devoted family man. He referred to his wife Hazel as his best friend and acknowledged her whenever he was honored with an award. Jim supported his four sons in football [soccer] and later his daughter’s ballet. In fact, Jim became so involved that he actually became part of the Tucson Regional Ballet performing for several years in the Southwest Nutcracker, which many of us were fortunate to be able to witness! After his retirement he rolled up his sleeves and was actively involved in Habitat for Humanity - it seemed natural for Jim to serve his community, no matter the context. We will remember Jim as a smiling face, never too busy to sit down and share a caipirinha with us. Saúde Jim!

Links that remember Jim Shuttleworth:
2001 AGU Hydrology Section Award
2002 EOS Article Featuring Jim
2006 IAHS, UNESCO, and WHO International Hydrology Prize Citation and Response
2009 University of Arizona Regents’ Professor Tribute (Video)
2011 AGU Langbein Lecture (Video)
2013 AMS Robert E. Horton Lecturer in Hydrology
2014 AGU Robert E. Horton Medal
2015 EOS Article Featuring Jim
2020 Ameriflux Memoriam - Remembering Professor Jim Shuttleworth
2020 History of Hydrology Biography
2020 Jim Shuttleworth Memorial
2020 Dec 29 Tucson Memorial Service (Video)

0 Comments

MEET A LEAF: Rafael Bras

12/28/2020

0 Comments

Dr. Rafael L. Bras is a Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the Schools of Civil and Environmental Engineering and of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Ecohydrology is the integration of the hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. That we had to create a term to describe what we should be doing speaks to how wrong, and myopic, we were just a few years ago. It should be obvious that at certain scales in space and time those elements of the Earth system must evolve together in an exquisite dance.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
My undergraduate degree was in Civil Engineering, focusing on the environmental side – there was no Environmental Engineering then. My MS is in Civil Engineering – Water Resources and my Sc.D. in Hydrology and Water Resources. All my degrees are from MIT, where I spent most of my professional career.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
I have had the opportunity of participating in the definition and emergence of modern hydrology. As a graduate student in the early 1970’s, experts commonly stated that “land masses were not important to the Earth climate”. That quote from an oceanographer – whose name I do not remember – has always stayed with me because it is absolute and wrong. It served as a motivator of much of my work. I was lucky in having Professors Peter S. Eagleson and Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe as mentors and then colleagues. They pioneered eco-hydrology and much of modern hydrology. They championed the inseparable relationship between land and atmosphere, an idea that I follow in all my work and have worked to build into the education of over 70 students and post-docs that I have been privileged to mentor.

Quoting from a small piece I wrote at the occasion of my offering the 2020 Langbein Lecture: “Back in 1987, Pete Eagleson and I wrote an editorial in EOS, entitled: Hydrology, The Forgotten Earth Science (Bras and Eagleson, 1987). We argued that development of hydrology had been driven by societal problems at such a rate that: “The cultivation of hydrology as a science per se has not occurred, and there has been no established platform within the hierarchy of science on which to build a coherent understanding of the global water cycle”.” I feel satisfied that we have come a long way since then, largely because of the recognition that the hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere are inseparable – ecohydrology.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
In over 35 years since the emergence of ecohydrology, we have just touched the tip of the iceberg and remain at infancy. Much of our work has been focused in quantifying how plants mediate the hydrologic and energy cycles and how, in turn, they are a product of the very same environment they create. We have approached the problem at the conceptual, system, level – largely because we do not know any better and because anyone of us is limited in our knowledge of everything that plays into how climate, soil, vegetation and the hydrosphere operate. We lack sufficient, in-depth, knowledge to be predictive of all the interactions that occur in nature. The only way to overcome this situation will be to learn to work in teams of people with different in-depth knowledge. We must start by agreeing on a common language to communicate. Particularly important areas that that remain to be explored in the context of ecohydrology are the microbial ecosystem and improving predictability of the inevitable changes that a warming climate will bring about.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
To me, the cornerstone work is that of Peter S. Eagleson in a series of 7 papers, all published in an issue of Water Resources Research in 1978, with the common title “Climate, Soil and Vegetation”. This was the first, and boldest, attempt to quantify (not just describe) a climate, soil, vegetation system, what we now call ecohydrology. He later published a book that captured and expanded on his ideas - Ecohydrology: Darwinian Expression of Vegetation Form and Function, Cambridge University Press, 2004. Eagleson was bold in many ways. First, he brought together an extraordinary diverse set of knowledge into one hypothesis. Second, he hypothesized a debatable concept of pseudo-equilibrium, a climax, among all the different components of the Earth system. To me this is a beautiful idea which, at its essence, I believe correct. We are a product of chance and necessity. Third, he had the courage to quantify all the relationships he postulated. This work was the foundation of ecohydrology.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I have to begin by saying that I simply love all I do. Since very early on, 1982, I developed my career in parallel to increasing administrative responsibilities, culminating as Provost of Georgia Tech, a position I just left. But I am far more than my work. I am inherently curious about almost anything and enjoy everything from history to politics. I enjoy my family and share as much time as we can together. I have always had a little adventurous streak in me. I was an active single engine airplane pilot. I love scuba diving – although do not do it as often as I would like. I have glided and jumped out of airplanes. These days I love driving my sports car and riding my horses with my wife. Life has been good to me and if I had to do it over again, I still would be a professor, the best job ever, and a hydrologist.

0 Comments

MEET A LEAF: Ana Ochoa-Sánchez

12/21/2020

0 Comments

Ana Ochoa-Sánchez is a Lecturer in the School of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Azuay, Cuenca, Ecuador.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Ecohydrology is understanding the functioning of the ecosystem through analysing the interactions of physical and biological processes (e.g. climate, vegetation and soil). I think ecohydrology is key to fully comprehend our ecosystems by taking into account biotic and abiotic factors. During the last years, I have been working in understanding evapotranspiration dynamics and components in the high Andean grasslands; and therefore, for me, ecohydrology means unravelling ecosystems functioning with a later purpose of understanding climate and land use change impacts, and propose how to improve management.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I graduated from Civil Engineering at University of Cuenca in Ecuador. Then, I travelled to Belgium and followed a Master in the Interuniversity Programme in Water Resources Engineering between the KU Leuven and VUB. Last year, I obtained my PhD in Water Resources from the Interuniversity Programme between University of Cuenca, National Polytechnic School, and Technical Particular University of Loja in Ecuador.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
I have worked in different research projects about water quality, climatology, hydraulic modelling and ecohydrology. I got to see a bit about different topics. When I was working with climate models in the high Andean catchments, our models were performing poorly. In order to improve them, I thought we needed to increase knowledge about local climate processes for sure, but also about our understanding of the complete system. At that time, a PhD position opened in ecohydrology where I found the opportunity to pursue a topic that became so interesting and fulfilling for me.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
For poorly monitored sites, I think the comprehensive understanding of ecosystems is vital. Looking at the interactions between water, vegetation and soil needs intensive monitoring but it is worth it. After reaching that point, I think implementing models that are more precise in representing biotic and abiotic factors will help to answer, more effectively, questions about climate and land use changes. This will be especially important to advance in adaptation strategies and better water management decisions.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
I am a fan of some authors that awoke my interest in ecohydrology. For example, Prof. Bruijnzeel, widely known as Sampurno, who has a vast work in the functioning of tropical forests, I especially like his papers on interception. I like the work of Prof. Heidi Asbjornsen, Prof. Jeffrey Mcdonell and Prof. Bradford Wilcox. Of course, the valuable work of Prof. Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe in ecohydrology is outstanding. I will peak then a paper of his, that made me understand what ecohydrology means: “Ecohydrology: A hydrologic perspective of climate-soil-vegetation dynamics”. It is not a research article but a vision for the future, written in 2000, that has lead the path of ecohydrology. He wrote about the space-time links between climate, soil, and vegetation. He stated “the necessity to gain a predictive understanding based on solid and quantitative scientific grounds of the responses of different biomes to a changing global environment”. Finally, he encouraged young researchers to be interested in understanding nature and pursuing their own dreams.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I love walking in nature with my family. We live near the Cajas National Park, where we usually go for fishing and for beautiful mountain sightseeing. I also enjoy astronomy readings and listening to music.

0 Comments

MEET A LEAF: Gretchen Miller

12/14/2020

0 Comments

Dr. Gretchen Miller is an Associate Professor at Texas A&M University in Civil and Environmental Engineering.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
I have always thought of ecohydrology as the study of that most neglected part of the water balance, evapotranspiration. But that may be too narrow, and I am beginning to expand my view on this. Recharge is definitely more neglected.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I earned my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geological engineering, from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, which at the time was the University of Missouri – Rolla. I then did my doctorate in Environmental Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. The combination of topics gave me an excellent foundation for working on my main research area, groundwater dependent ecosystems.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
When I originally started my doctorate, I had intended to go into stochastic hydrogeology for hazardous waste applications. However, when I arrived at Berkeley, my advisor, Yoram Rubin, said, “You know, there’s a new area that’s getting attention, and given your talent for field work, I think you might be good at it.” We started working on a savanna model, which brought in my co-advisor, Dennis Baldocchi, and his field site at Tonzi Ranch. From there, I found that I really enjoyed both and have pursued an integrated modeling and measurement approach in my work since.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
To me, Earth system modeling is one recent effort where ecohydrologists are making significant contributions. The land surface has always been an important boundary condition in climate models. However, the recent push towards integrated multi-physics, multi-scale codes will be key to understanding how the biosphere and the geosphere shape and are shaped by future climate. As we are typically trained in a very interdisciplinary manner, I believe ecohydrologists are well poised to contribute in this arena.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe and Amilcare Porporato published their now classic book Ecohydrology of Water Controlled Ecosystems: Soil Moisture and Plant Dynamics right as I was beginning to work in the field, so the papers collected within it have always been extremely influential in my thinking. Lately, I’ve also come to appreciate works that examine the interconnection between groundwater depletion and agricultural production, which as a matter of food security continues to be a more pressing issue than we realize. Bridget Scanlon and Megan Kronar both have several compelling papers addressing this, making it difficult to pick a favorite.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
These days, my fun is quite kid-orientated – activities like scootering around the neighborhood, constructing Lego buildings, and being chased by zombies in Minecraft. When I do have spare time, I’ve been learning to play piano. It’s been a while since I’ve seriously played an instrument, the last time being the trombone in high school marching band. Music has been a great way to switch off the scientist/engineer part of my brain and always seems to help when I get stuck on a tricky bit of writing.

0 Comments

MEET A LEAF: Monica Garcia

12/7/2020

0 Comments

Dr. Monica Garcia is an Associate Professor at Denmark Technical University in the Environmental Engineering Department.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
I see ecohydrology as the study of the interactions between hydrological, biogeochemical and ecological processes, especially bringing more of the biotic component into hydrology and the consideration of plants as ecosystem engineers. I like the idea of merging different ways of thinking, like evolutionary perspectives from ecology with more mechanistic from hydrology. It also means a way to provide engineering solutions that are more sustainable in response to environmental problems or agricultural management.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
My undergrad was in agricultural engineering at the Polytechnic University in Madrid (UPM). I did a Master in Agricultural Development at the University of California, Davis, where I specialized in remote sensing and a PhD in Environmental Remote Sensing. I was really lucky to be part of a blended program at the UPM and the Center for Spatial Technologies and Remote Sensing (CSTARS) at UC Davis with Susan Ustin.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
I had an implicit interest on it before knowing the term since my PhD when I studied resilience of vegetation productivity to climate variability using remote sensing in California. I learnt about plant ecology, soil- plant-water relations expanding from a somewhat more reductionist view I had from my engineering background.

I only became familiar with ecohydrology as a discipline during my postdoc years, working on water-limited environments. In Spain, the group of Juan Puigdefábregas, at the Experimental Station of Arid lands (CSIC), was doing pioneer research on the role of vegetation patterns and vegetation interactions on hydrological processes. I started working with them in 2005 on a project on land degradation and groundwater. We wanted to quantify groundwater recharge in a region where a massive land use change of 26,000 ha. of plastic greenhouses, visible from space, was causing groundwater depletion and other environmental problems. Getting right the evapotranspiration of natural vegetation in the mountain range was key. This work sparked my interest on how plants influence the hydrological cycle via stomatal regulation and carbon allocation and how to model that in natural semiarid vegetation. Another part of my research in those years was on understanding how ecosystem functioning changed across land degradation/restoration trajectories to develop global remote sensing indicators of ecological status.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
Using remote sensing data from satellites and drones can help to answer questions at multiple scales, assess the role of vegetation patterns on ecohydrological feedbacks, or help to integrate terrestrial and aquatic processes, like carbon flows, at the watershed level. A joint use of hyperspectral, thermal, LiDAR, photogrammetry or microwave data can retrieve plant function and structural traits, soil properties, soil moisture in terrestrial ecosystems or streamflows and water quality indicators like CDOM in freshwater ecosystems. From the remote sensing side, think that it is crucial to investigate mechanistic links between plant function and absorption, reflectance and emission radiation to move beyond machine learning/statistical methods or tuning effective model parameters with in situ data in process based models.

For me it is very exciting to see the current progress in understanding vegetation carbon, energy and water fluxes in relation to plant hydraulic traits, thermal regulation or the relations between functional, taxonomic and spectral diversity. However, I think most of the land surface models are lagging behind in incorporating some of those aspects, for instance still categorize ecosystems in terms of plant functional types. Considering these processes will help to improve predictions of tree mortality due to heat waves or assess community demography changes in relation to climate.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
It is difficult to say just one…Those that developed a theoretical basis of ecohydrology as a science in drylands like the book of Eagleson, P. (2002). Ecohydrology: Darwinian Expression of Vegetation Form and Function. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511535680.
Recently, I have been inspired by the review from Mencuccini, M., Manzoni, S., & Christoffersen, B. (2019). Modelling water fluxes in plants: from tissues to biosphere. New Phytologist, 222(3), 1207–1222 about scalability of traits or the need to consider plant hydraulics to explain plant ecological strategies and dynamics.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
During the dark Danish winter I enjoy watercolor painting. There is a part of letting things go, as the water flows without me being able to control it, turning into (sometimes) unexpectedly beautiful patterns. I also love walking in nature and traveling, sometimes combining work-holiday because as scientists we can go to beautiful places. In the picture, we were in Guanacaste, Costa Rica doing a spectral library for an algal bloom that was killing fish and turtles, on the side of our research.
I also have a hide-out, our cozy house in the Gredos mountains in Spain spending time with my husband, family and friends surrounded by vineyards, fig and olive trees, hearing the Arenal stream in the background while chatting around a good table...

0 Comments

MEET A LEAF: Alejandro Ocegueda

11/30/2020

0 Comments

Alejandro Ocegueda is an undergraduate student of environmental science engineering at the Instituto tecnológico de Sonora, Mexico.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Every person has a different meaning for ecohydrology and I think it is because this science came at a different moment in each of their lives in a distinct way. So everyone has his own special meaning, for example for me ecohydrology is more than a science. It is another way to be one with nature because when we understand all the things that we study like the processes, fluxes, the interactions of all the pieces of this puzzle, we can feel a better connection with the earth. ‘Cause you can say “oh, that event happened thanks to these reasons” and you decide if you want to be more like an actor or just appreciate it from far away. At the same time that we can help to get a better place to live. I mean, you fill your heart 'cause you do some that you love and helps the planet, not all the people can say it.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I keep studying at the university but I'm in the last chapter of this history. After college, I would like to study a masters degree and keep learning about the ecohydrology and restoration of seagrass. Those are my goals and I’ll do the right things, but if life has other plans for me then I’ll take them in the best way.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
That is a sad story because I was looking for answers about what I wanted to do with my life after university. My head was a mess, I felt the pressure of time, and I heard the same thing in my mind over and over again "I'm only 22 years old but I see that my life is ending and I do not do anything special with it". Then I remembered some teachers whose classes had made me feel special and that I was born for this then I sent an email to my Professor Zulia with a peculiar title "Looking for my future” I explained all my feelings to her and she told me about her plans and told me that I could be part of them. So now I am here, trying to understand the flow of air-sea CO2 in a semi-aerial coastal lagoon of the Gulf of California.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
I don't think it is an area as such but the distribution of information and awareness about this science and their studies could be the most important part. In Mexico the ecology is almost irrelevant as our government prefers money before nature. For example, in the coast are ecosystems like seagrasses and mangroves and not all know "que la cantidad de carbono que logran fijar es mayor que de los ecosistemas terrestres" also we don't know which specific part of this ecosystems is the main actor in that process. We need more investigation to understand it but the business men are destroying our environment before we can resolve the problem. Like a vicious circle: if there’s no investigation so there's no information, if there’s no information, the people wouldn't know about what they are losing, if the people don’t know may don’t care, if they don’t care the government can sell the nature and if the government sell it there’s no investigation.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?
For me, there is not a paper as such but when I was in high school I read a book called "La importancia de la naturaleza" by Alma Orozco. And those pages helped me to decide which road to take. The book talks about the role of ecosystems in our lives, the importance of every shape of life and what could happen if we just ignored and destroyed everything environmental. The book is awesome for beginners and helps to get another vision of the world.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I usually play computer games or go out with my dog for walk. Also I practice some arts like theater and dance, and some circus art - for example stilts (zancos) or aerial dance. I have a little job as a showman in parties so I can do those things and the best part is I get paid, jaja. But there is nothing that I enjoy more than doing road travel with the people that I love.

0 Comments

MEET A LEAF: Sara Sheri Karimi

11/23/2020

0 Comments

Sara Sheri Karimi is a PhD candidate in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Macquarie University, Australia. Twitter: @SaraSh_Karimi

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
I'm a hydrologist with six years of experience working as an irrigation system designer, so to me, ecohydrology means considering ecological assets in our water resource allocations. I specifically study inundation-vegetation interaction in the hope of a better understanding of flood characteristics effects on floodplain vegetation distribution and productivity, which is foundational information for interpreting the implications of water sharing plans, dam operational rules, and environmental flow strategies on floodplain biota at the flow event or flow regime scale.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
My undergraduate degree is in Water Engineering from Shahid Chamran University in Iran. I have a Master of Science degree in Hydraulic Structures with a specialization in Environmental Flows from Urmia University, Iran. I'm currently finishing my PhD in Environmental Sciences at Macquarie University, Australia with a focus on Inundation-Vegetation association.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
It stemmed from my grad studies whilst I specifically started working on environmental flows in rivers for my master thesis. Although Iran has many rivers and wetlands, the concept of environmental flows was a relatively new notion at that time, as such, my master's degree was innovative in an area with little ecological data. Consequently, I focused on hydrological methods for assessing eflow requirements conscious of a huge lack of ecological knowledge for a realistic eflow estimation. This experience served as a solid foundation for my ecohydrology research leading me to pursue a PhD in a robust ecology focused team. Later on, I joined the lab of Neil Saintilan, a leading figure internationally in water and wetland management, where I am completing my PhD and learning more about the ecological assets of dryland floodplains and the effect of water development strategies on flood-dependant vegetation communities.

My research background in environmental flows enables me to comprehend the necessity of ecological aspects for effective water allocation, and my work experience has made me a conscious engineer especially concerning the lack of study of the environmental effects of water projects on our ecosystems.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
Having studied and obtained work experience in the field of water engineering, I am aware that an integrated multidisciplinary approach to the sustainable rehabilitation and maintenance of aquatic ecosystems together with population dynamics, will dictate this century.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
There are lots of papers I like, but one of the first ecohydrology papers which framed my understanding of the interaction between hydrology and aquatic biodiversity is Altered Flow Regimes for Aquatic Biodiversity by Stuart Bunn and Angela Arthington (2002). They beautifully highlighted the effect of altering flow regimes on aquatic biodiversity in streams and rivers by developing useful guiding principles.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I like swimming, and I'm fortunate to be able to enjoy the beautiful transparent Caribbean sea in Barbados where I am located since the pandemic. I also enjoy globe-trotting with my husband when possible.

0 Comments

MEET A LEAF: Diane Pataki

11/16/2020

1 Comment

Dr. Diane E. Pataki is a Professor in the School of Biological Sciences, Adjunct Professor in the Department of City & Metropolitan Planning, and Associate Vice President for Research at the University of Utah.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
For me ecohydrology helps us understand the two-way interactions between ecosystems and the water cycle. I’ve always been very interested in the role of vegetation in the water cycle, but over the years my focus has expanded to include other components of ecosystems and how they interact with water, such as cities, people, and the built environment. There are many definitions of ecology (some definitions include humans and some don’t) but if we define ecological processes very broadly, then the many ways in which humans and the rest of the biosphere interact with water all fall within the scope of ecohydrology.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I grew up in New York City and stayed there for college, majoring in environmental science at Barnard College. Throughout college I had a part-time job at the headquarters of the Environmental Defense Fund, where I worked for Fred Krupp, the Executive Director (who is still there!). I was interested in studying how global change affects ecosystem processes, and I asked Fred for advice about graduate programs in that area. He recommended the Duke School of the Environment (now the Nicholas School), which at that time was a new interdisciplinary merger of the School of Forestry, the marine lab, and the geology department. I ended up in the lab of Ram Oren, a tree ecophysiologist working on forest water relations. I got both an M.S. and a Ph.D. with Ram, though to this day, I’m not actually sure what these degrees are in! They’re basically in ecology (with a certificate in hydrology), except at that time the Ph.D. program in the Nicholas School was brand new and the details hadn’t quite been ironed out. My transcript just labels my degrees as “Environment.” Appropriate enough for an interdisciplinary field like ecohydrology!

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
I originally went to Duke to study the effects of elevated CO2 on forest ecosystems. At that time the Duke Free Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) experiment was under construction. While I was waiting for the experiment to be completed I worked on Ram’s other projects, many of which were collaborative studies of water and energy fluxes with Gaby Katul. I got very interested in their work on the effects of water stress on local forests, and ended up focusing my dissertation on the effects of drought on canopy conductance. Unfortunately, once I decided to measure the responses of tree transpiration to drought, the weather stopped cooperating (as is usually the case with field work). Conditions in the Duke Forest were fairly wet for the next few years, and I never really got to study severe drought. So for my postdoc I decided to study an ecosystem where I was almost guaranteed to find drought stress - I took a position at the Desert Research Institute’s Nevada FACE site in the Mojave Desert. This was in 1998, and that year there was a very significant ENSO event. And wouldn’t you know it? It wouldn’t stop raining in the southwest that summer! I did eventually encounter severe droughts in my research projects (and then some – water scarcity has reached crisis levels in the western U.S.), but in my early career severe drought stress was a bit elusive!

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
During my postdoc my research transitioned from studying the effects of atmospheric change on ecosystems to studying urbanization. The transformations of land, water, and ecosystems by human domination of the land surface is central to global environmental change. I’m very interested in the study of the two-way interactions between people and the environment. Humans don’t just influence the environment; we’re influenced by the environment as well. This emerging field of “socio-ecohydrology” is very exciting, because it offers the possibility of developing and testing feasible and equitable solutions to socio-environmental problems. Socio-ecohydrologic studies are increasingly shedding light on the inequities in water consumption, drought impacts, and effects of climate change on vulnerable populations. This works shows the need to integrate justice and ethical concerns into studies of the water cycle. An example of what an ethical code for water might look like can be found here: https://www.thenatureofcities.com/2020/10/31/the-need-for-an-ethical-code-for-water/ If you have comments about it, please let us know!

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
The paper “Water in a Changing World” by Rob Jackson et al. (2001), Ecological Applications v.11(4) 1027-1045 was eye-opening for its estimation of the human influence on the water cycle. The authors calculated that over half of the freshwater runoff available on earth is already appropriated for human use. Over half! And that was 20 years ago – the proportion is undoubtedly larger today. This paper was a wake up call for me about the urgency of ecohydrologic and socio-ecohydrogic research. There is no time to waste – we need solutions-oriented research on water equity, quality, and quantity right now.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I’m very fortunate to live in one of the most beautiful places on the planet. For fun my husband and I, along with our two dogs, hike and explore Utah and the surrounding states, especially in the area around Moab where we’ve lived part-time for a number of years. Luckily, outdoor recreation is still possible during the pandemic. I miss seeing my friends and colleagues in person, but at least we have our national parks and public lands. Utah is a long way from the city where I grew up, but it’s become home.

1 Comment

<<Previous

MEET A LEAF: Anne Verhoef

MEET A LEAF: Arial Shogren

MEET A LEAF: W.J. "Jim" Shuttleworth

MEET A LEAF: Rafael Bras

MEET A LEAF: Ana Ochoa-Sánchez

MEET A LEAF: Gretchen Miller

MEET A LEAF: Monica Garcia

MEET A LEAF: Alejandro Ocegueda

MEET A LEAF: Sara Sheri Karimi

MEET A LEAF: Diane Pataki

Author

Archives

Categories