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MEET A LEAF: Esteban Jobbágy

1/28/2019

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Dr. Esteban Jobbágy is a Professor at the Universidad Nacional de San Luis & CONICET, San Luis – Argentina (-33.292, -66.342).  @ejobbagy
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What does ecohydrology mean to you?
(A very biased and, perhaps, emotional take on this) The notion of “Ecoydrology” in my mind points to the biota and the rules of the living world commanding the vagaries of water cycling on Earth. Probably, our world is much more biotic than what most Earth scientist still accept or grasp. For me Ecohydrology has its most exciting front in this realization and the one that comes automatically after it: By shaping the world´s biota, we, humans, are transforming the water cycle too.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
Doubtful on whether I wanted to be a park ranger, a mountain guide or a field biologist I decided to study Agronomy in Universidad de Buenos Aires in my home city. I graduated in 1993 and I am still proud of being and Aggie and a lot of my current research involves crops, farms and farmers. In 2002 I obtained my PhD in Biology from Duke University in the US, under Rob Jackson´s advice. My dissertation explored how plants redistributed nutrients vertically. Duke and Rob´s lab where like home for many years since then.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
Like the most important things in life, almost by chance. I was working with soil nutrients in the plains of Argentina, specifically using islands of tree plantations within the grasslands to explore nutrient uplift by plants. I started realizing that groundwater was a very important part of the system and I needed to understand its role exchanging materials (nutrients/salts) with plants and soils from below. Pulling from that thread I discovered the amazing “beast” that shallow water tables in the plains can be. They are the hub of many processes and they are present not just in a few rare spots like lowlands or riparian areas, but almost everywhere. They are also a powerful connector among landscape patches and a tremendous source of hydrological and ecological inertia. That thread took me directly into the world of vegetation-groundwater interactions and from there to land cover-atmosphere feedbacks, vegetation and flood dynamics, evaporation/transpiration and salt dynamics.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
As the number one challenge and emerging area I would put Human-Water links. This is not about making our science useful to people (which off course is great!), it is about transforming it to understand how the behavior of humans and human organizations regarding water shape the water cycle.  How do poor vs. rich or democratic vs. autocratic societies respond to wetting or drying climate trends (e.g. In a drying context, which ones would build more dams, become more water use efficient, or outsource water consuming activities?) Different responses will leave a different imprint on the water cycle locally and globally. Or let think about cultivated landscapes and how farming decision rules (e.g. to irrigation or not, to do paddy rice or dryland maize as agriculture expands to higher slopes in the tropics, to insist with soybean cultivation at the onset of floods or to switch to pastures instead) will translate into positive or negative hydrological feedbacks? I feel we know disproportionally more about the biophysical than the human controls of water fluxes on Earth, yet the Anthropocene is here asking for a change in our focus. 

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
I would mention Immanuel Noy Meir´s review in Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics in 1973, but Amilcare Porporato already mentioned it in his leaf not so long ago. So, I will bring instead a book that I consider revolutionary. It´s Bill Schlesinger “Biogeochemistry”  Now in its 3rd edition, this book combines and extremely powerful synthesis of data with deep and ambitious underlaying plan which, in my opinion, is to show how we can approach the complexity of the Earth System and it’s response to the growing influence of humans from the perspective of the circulation of materials. In each chapter there is a very clever story highlighting the role of the biota and humans and their trends in Earth’s history. Many of the synthesis tables of the book could have been the core of top cited papers, but Bill opted to go for a more comprehensive and efficient way of making his point and reaching young scientists: A full book. This book transformed my thinking about our world.  Interestingly the water chapter is not the strongest one, likely because at that time the understanding of the “bio” part of the water cycle was running behind what was known in the case of the carbon or phosphorus cycles. Still, the book is in the foundation of the careers of many ecohydrologists.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I like to swim. In the pool several days a week, in the ocean or the lakes when I can. I even swim sometimes to put sensors in the lakes of the Pampas. I also like hiking and running and enjoy cooking everyday food. I also get thrilled when I can become a part-time hunter-gatherer looking for nuts in abandoned homesteads in the sierra or fishing for dinner at the beach. Nature is the place I pick to work and play and sharing life with my two (grown) boys, my partner, my friends and family and the amazing team with whom we built the lab in San Luis, is the biggest joy. 
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MEET A LEAF: Nandita Basu

1/21/2019

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Dr. Nandita Basu is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo.  Twitter: @nanditabasu2
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What does ecohydrology mean to you?
From a definitional perspective, ecohydrology is a study of the interactions between water and ecosystems. For me, ecohydrology is the science of natural systems, because the only way to truly understand natural systems is through exploring the connections and feedbacks between the various subsystems of our natural world -- between ecology, hydrology, geochemistry geomorphology -- and between natural and social systems. These feedbacks create interesting and unexpected patterns, ranging from fractal network formations in rivers, wetlands and coastal areas to ridge and slough landscapes in the Everglades to dryland vegetation patterns. Understanding patterns in natural systems using simple scientific principles, and being able to use this understanding to manage our landscapes more sustainably lies at the center of my love for ecohydrology.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in? 
All my degrees are in Civil and Environmental Engineering. My undergraduate and masters degrees are from Jadavpur University and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in India, while my PhD degree is from Purdue University, US.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
My first foray into ecohydrology started in my undergraduate years when I did a project on the Kolkata wetlands, a 125-square km area of natural and human-made wetlands, lying downstream of the city of Kolkata in India.  These wetlands not only provide flood defense against rising sea levels, but are an amazing example of a coupled natural and human system, where salt marshes and settling ponds coexist, where nutrient from the cities’ waste is used for sustaining fish farms and agriculture. Developmental pressures and a lack of an understanding of the true value of this amazing ecosystem are contributing to the wetlands being lost at an alarming rate. Coming from a traditional engineering background, where a wetland is treated as a reactor with a rate constant, the intricacies of the coupled dynamics of this highly complex system intrigued and fascinated me. For me, ecohydrology is about understanding these interactions between natural and human systems, and developing strategies to protect our natural system in a changing landscape.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
In the last decade, we have seen an exponential increase in the incidences of algal blooms and hypoxic zones in our water bodies despite huge amounts of money and effort being invested in curbing nutrient pollution. Incidences of harmful algal blooms are being reported even in some of the more “pristine” lakes. What makes this a really interesting and challenging problem is that while multiple factors have been implicated -- ranging from a changing climate (changing precipitation and ice duration) to aquatic and terrestrial legacies, to changing nutrient ratios that trigger different algal species -- we are still struggling to develop a comprehensive understanding of the drivers and controls of these blooms and the strategies to improve water quality, given changing climate and population pressures. I consider this to be one of the most exciting areas of ecohydrology.

Almost concurrent with increasing water quality threats we have seen an exponential increase in our ability to harness massive geospatial datasets in the last decade, and I expect that learning from this data will allow us to see the forest from the trees, to go beyond our own streams or lakes to find global patterns and unifying theories, and will contribute to the greatest advances in ecohydrology. From a personal perspective, for data nerds like me, the ability to synthesize, understand and learn from disparate systems, using regional and global databases is like solving a large jigsaw puzzle - where the story gets clearer as you find more and more connections – and gives you hours of pure, unadulterated joy.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
This is a tough question…there are so many papers I love. For me, interesting papers are those that challenge the existing paradigm – one such paper is the Bernhardt et al. Perspectives paper “Cleaner Lakes are Dirtier Lakes,” and the related Finlay et al. paper. “Human Influences on Nitrogen Removal in lakes.”

The existing paradigm is that reductions in nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) loads to our water bodies will lead to water quality improvement. These papers show, using a global lake dataset, that reduction in P inputs can actually contribute to a reduction in a lake’s denitrification potential, thus increasing N exports and contributing to N pollution in downstream coastal waters. Reduction in P inputs to lakes can decrease algal production, and thus algal uptake of N, and subsequently decrease mineralization and denitrification of algal N in lake sediments. 

These two papers are a brilliant example of unintended consequences, how attempting to solve one problem in a connected system can exacerbate another problem, unless we take a more holistic approach. This to me is the essence of ecohydrology.  



What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I have a 4-year old – so fun includes erupting baking soda volcanoes, making electric dough and bouncy eggs, hiking in the woods, making snow angels, and answering a gazillion “why” questions. Guilty pleasures when he is asleep or otherwise occupied range from escape rooms with my amazing lab group to board games to reading, tweeting and Netflix binging. In the past, one of the most fun things I have done is skydiving – hope to do it again someday with my son when he is older.
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MEET A LEAF: JIA HU

1/14/2019

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Dr. Jia Hu is an Assistant Professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Arizona.
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What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Ecohydrology is a field of research that links hydrological and ecological processes by studying the feedbacks that occur between both components. I am completely biased, but I do believe that some of the most exciting hydrology related research is currently related to ecohydrology.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
My undergraduate degree was in Integrative Biology from UC Berkeley.
Graduate degree was in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from CU Boulder.


How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
My undergraduate and graduate research interests were mainly focused on plant water and carbon relations. However, as I began collaborating more with watershed hydrologists, I realized how important it was to take a broader, landscape perspective. By focusing primarily on plant water cycling, I had been completely ignoring how water got to the plants in the first place. By recognizing that soil, plant, and atmospheric water cycling were inextricably linked, I began to take a more holistic approach to research and begin to ask more exciting questions.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
Because I come from a background in ecology, I may view ecohydrology differently than most ‘ecohydrologists.’ The discipline of ecohydrology arose from hydrology, and I would argue that a more accurate description of the field in its current state is ‘hydrological-ecology,’ since hydrology is still very much the main focus. However, the field is rapidly changing and the integration of both hydrologic and ecologic processes is becoming more common.

One of the most exciting areas are research in ecohydrology is our ability to begin describing mechanisms that govern how water moves through complex landscapes (e.g. mountain watersheds), and the subsequent response by vegetation once water becomes available. By moving beyond simply describing patterns of water availability and water use, but testing mechanisms on why water moves or how it is used in a particular way, the field of ecohydrology can truly begin to integrate both disciplines.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
Most of us are taught that water typically moves from the soil, to the roots, and then to the atmosphere (i.e. SPAC); however, it is becoming increasingly common to find studies that show direct uptake of water from the leaves and the subsequent downward movement of water into trunks of trees. This mainly occurs in foggy or cloudy environments, where cloud water or fog can be a critical moisture source. This ‘wicking’ of occult precipitation from the atmosphere is not only important in regulating plant water status, but it can also being an important moisture source in stream and even ground water (e.g. cloud water input, fog drip, etc.). Thus, my favorite ecohydrology ‘paper’ is not a paper, but a book, titled, ‘Tropical Montane Cloud Forests: Science for Conservation and Management,’ Eds. Bruijnzeel, Scatena, and Hamilton. While the scope of this book is about cloud forests, the perspective that fog and cloud water can be important sources of moisture is quite important. Furthermore, if we begin to lose vegetation from these tropical cloud forests, from either deforestation or ‘cloud-lifting,’ then there may be less precipitation inputs into tropical headwater ecosystems, leading to less streamflow in the lowland tropics, particularly during the dry season. These feedbacks between vegetation and hydrology are tightly coupled in these systems, and offers exciting opportunities for research!
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What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I love being outdoors and working in the field is one of my favorite things to do. When I lived in Boulder, CO and Bozeman, MT, skiing and hiking were my two favorite activities. Now that I live in Tucson, I am trying to take advantage of being able to hike 365 days of the year. I have two kids who are now finally big enough to hike longer distances on their own and it is my goal to explore more of AZ this year. At home, I love to cook, and spending hours on Sunday afternoon cooking a big family meal is a perfect way to wrap up the weekend.
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MEET A LEAF: AMILCARE PORPORATO

1/7/2019

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Dr. Amilcare Porporato is the Thomas J. Wu ’94 Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Princeton Environmental Institute at Princeton University.
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What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Ecohydrology makes hydrology extremely interesting, pushing us to explore how the water cycle affects our environment and forcing us to venture into other disciplines. More profoundly, using the words of the great Jacques Cousteau, ecohydrology reminds us that ‘water and life are one and the same’.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I technically do not have an undergraduate degree, because up until few years ago in the Italian system one would directly go for a 5-year master’s degree (laurea). Thus, after a classical high school, I got my laurea in civil engineering from the Polytechnic of Turin (with specialization in hydraulic engineering) in 1992 and then, after a year of civil service in alternative to the military service, I started a PhD in hydraulic engineering, jointly with the Turin and Milan polytechnics. My PhD thesis (1996) was on nonlinear time series analysis for near wall turbulence and flood forecasting.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
By solving an equation for the steady state probability density function (PDF) of soil moisture, in Jan 1998. I was a researcher (assistant professor), working in a tiny office of the mezzanine of the department of hydraulics at the polytechnic of Turin in collaboration with my great colleague and friend Luca Ridolfi. I was to visit Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe for a junior sabbatical at TAMU in the coming months and we had discussed two topics of research: land-atmosphere interaction and stochastic soil moisture dynamics. Ignacio sent us a fax with a stochastic differential equation that he had formulated with David Cox. It soon became clear that the loss function in this equation contained, in a nutshell, lots of ecohydrology. I’ve kept working on this equation (among other things) for more than twenty years now! I’ve always been very interested in water-plant relationships, so adding pieces to this equation and coupling it to other systems has been fun.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
Ecohydrology gives us knowledge and tools to manage our soil and water resources in a more sustainable way. As I often joke with my students, however, if the ‘ideal politician’ (of an equally ideal society) came and asked the ecohydrologists what the best way is to manage our ecosystems (e.g., type of crops, irrigation and fertilization practices, etc. to avoid land and water degradation, while providing good food in a changing climate), I don’t think we would have a good answer. As silly as this joke may sound, it may be a good way for us to formulate well defined problems, which is crucial to make progress, before (or in parallel to) adding the full complexity of the interacting social system; a bit like we do in hydrology with the potential evapotranspiration concept to provide an upper bound to the actual evapotranspiration.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
I have several of course, but I want to mention here the paper by Guido Salvucci, Estimating the moisture dependence of root zone water loss using conditionally averaged precipitation. Water Resources Research, 37(5), 1357-1365, 2001. This paper used a network of soil moisture measurements in a very clever way to fit the soil moisture PDF and from there obtain the shape of the loss function. The paper is very well done, elegant and insightful. Personally, I also like it because it provided a confirmation that our soil moisture PDF obtained three years earlier made sense when compared with real data.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I like mountaineering, gardening, and painting.
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