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MEET A LEAF: Femeena Pandara Valappil

5/27/2019

Dr. Femeena Pandara Valappil recently defended her PhD at Purdue University and joined the consulting firm BAI Group Inc. in State College, PA as an Engineer.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
To me, ecohydrology is a complex interdisciplinary science that deals with the two-way interactions between water and ecological entities. It helps us understand the various terrestrial and in-stream biophysicochemical processes that alter the way hydrology affects the surrounding environment and vice-versa. It not only captures the substantial research conducted across two broad fields of hydrology and ecology, but also finds essential links between the two areas that are necessary to study their converging implications on the environment. As a water resources engineer focusing on sustainable development, I consider ecohydrology to be the core discipline that brings together scientists, engineers and policy makers to develop solutions that are environmentally and ecologically sustainable.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I have a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from College of Engineering Trivandrum, India. I received my Master of Technology degree in Hydraulics and Water Resources Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India. Before joining for PhD at Purdue University, I spent two years in India working for a multinational consulting firm (Atkins) and International Water Management Institute. I graduated from Purdue University this year with a PhD in Agricultural and Biological Engineering.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
Coming from a ‘water resources-rich yet water-deficit’ country, I got interested in learning about hydrology and water quality early on in my academic career. The fact that even the places receiving considerable amount of annual rainfall in India experiences drought and poor water quality issues is a huge example of inefficient water and land management. This motivated me to dig deeper into the field of ecohydrology, focusing more on how land use and land management affects downstream water bodies in terms of both water quantity and quality. My exposure to study watersheds in the US and Germany further encouraged me to look at this topic from different perspectives and helped me learn how various best management practices used in these countries can alleviate water pollution to a great extent. My continued interest in in-stream nutrient dynamics led to my PhD research where I started conducting field studies to understand stream ecohydrology and nutrient-algae interactions in greater depths and to develop models that can predict this behavior appropriately.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
I think ecohydrology in itself will soon emerge as a strong discipline of study helping students in both science and engineering to have specializations in these fields. Ecohydrology is one of the areas where the research outcomes can have immediate societal and environmental impacts if implemented properly. More effort is required to bring together ecologists, hydrologists, policy makers and other stakeholders who can work collectively to develop and propose strategies/solutions that will resolve real-world issues, at both small and large scales. When we have engineers willing to learn more about the science behind things, and scientists agreeing to listen to the ideas put forth by engineers, we can come up with better, sustainable and more realistic answers to our ecohydrological problems.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
There are several papers in ecohydrology that stands out as landmark studies. One of my favorites is the widely popular paper on ‘The River Continuum Concept’ by Vannote et al. (1980). This paper is one of the pioneer works that played a big role in shaping the research carried out in ecohydrology field for many decades. The concept mentioned in the paper explains how streams work as a continuum instead of a static body of water and details about the changes in chemical and biological attributes within a stream as we move downstream along any flowing water body. Besides looking at the stream dynamics, this paper also provides hypotheses regarding the interactions between stream and terrestrial systems. I think this paper is a perfect example of how ecohydrology as a field encourages researchers to take a holistic approach by incorporating both ecology and hydrology to learn about land/water systems.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
Dancing has always been my favorite hobby. It is one of the things that helps me remain stress-free. Now that I have moved back with my family, I also spend a lot of time cooking, doing home improvement projects and gardening.

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MEET A LEAF: HUADE GUAN

5/20/2019

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Dr. Huade Guan is an Associate Professor at the National Centre for Groundwater Research & Training, College of Science & Engineering, Flinders University, Australia.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
To my mind, ecohydrology means the study of interactive processes on land surface that involve both plants and water, their influences on water resources, carbon fluxes, and heat balances, and their responses to environmental changes. As vegetation occurs almost everywhere on the terrestrial surfaces, ecohydrology has broad applications in the management of terrestrial resources and environments, such as water resources, forests, agriculture, and urban environment.

Physical processes that are investigated in ecohydrology form the core of land surface and atmosphere interactions. Thus, ecohydrology is closely associated with, and often difficult to be distinguished from hydrometeorology. My research area covers both ecohydrology and hydrometeorology. We actually have an acronym for my research group -- EcoH2OMe.

Ecohydrology is an interdisciplinary research field. Hydrology and ecophysiology are two obvious important disciplines for ecohydrology. Breadth of knowledge and skills, and cross-discipline research collaborations, are likely more rewarding for ecohydrology than other research fields.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I have an undergraduate degree in geochemistry from Peking University, Master’s degree in groundwater from the University of Texas at El Paso, and PhD degree in mountain hydrology from New Mexico Tech. I am happy with the breadth of training I have received in these degrees. My research in ecohydrology has greatly benefited from this training, as well as other knowledge and skills that I picked up on the way of my research until now.

For students in any field of science, if you don’t know yet what to do, come study ecohydrology.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
My interest in ecohydrology started at New Mexico Tech, where I did my PhD study with Dr John Wilson. I initially applied for a PhD study at New Mexico Tech mainly because of Tech’s groundwater hydrology ranking (the 4th in 2000). But it seemed that groundwater research at Tech was “surfacing” at that time. John started to look at mountain front recharge, which became my PhD study subject. Dr Fred Phillips was investigating vegetation impacts on groundwater recharge. Two young professors at New Mexico Tech then, Dr Eric Small and Dr Enrique Vivoni, were very active in ecohydrology research.

The landscape surrounding Socorro also helped to shape my interest in ecohydrology. I was fascinated by the clear grass-creosote and creosote-juniper boundaries in Sevilleta, although this was not the focus of my PhD study.

The key driver, pushing me away from hydrogeologically investigating mountain front recharge towards using surface-based approaches (including ecohydrology), was the difficulty in obtaining subsurface data. My PhD study ended up with developing methods to quantify the atmospheric boundary conditions (including both precipitation, potential evaporation and transpiration) over complex terrains, and modelling water partitioning on hillslopes. Development of a dual-source surface energy partitioning model in my PhD study at Tech was probably my first ecohydrology-related research.

I started field-based ecohydrology research in 2010, a couple years after I joined Flinders University. My students and I investigated the soil-plant continuum with concurrent measurements of sapflow and stem water potential. We hope to characterize root zone and plant hydraulic properties and states based on both measurements, like observation wells and pumping tests in groundwater hydrology. This concept, which I now call “root zone periscope”, has been applied to test and develop root water uptake and transpiration models. The computer program of a vegetation-focused soil-plant-atmosphere model (vSPAC) is now available upon request.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
This is a difficult question. Perhaps the recent ecohydrological separation concept, first proposed by Brooks et al. (2010) in Nature Geoscience, could be one emerging area. Dr Fred Phillips made clear and concise comments on the potential significance of this concept from both theoretical and application aspects, including the implications for catchment hydrology, fertilizer application, and soil remediation.

Understanding and modelling the connections between physical processes and plant mechanistic processes in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum could be another emerging area. Such understanding and modelling capacity are essential to predict vegetation ecosystem responses to changing climates. One example is the recent findings on the impact of the increased atmospheric CO2 concentration on plant stomatal conductance and the consequence on large-scale water balance, published in Nature Climate Change by Dr Yuting Yang and Dr Michael Roderick et al. (2018).

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
My favorite ecohydrology paper is McDowell et al. 2018, Mechanisms of plant survival and mortality during drought: why do some plants survive while others succumb to drought? published in New Phytologist. In this paper, the authors proposed a concise conceptual framework to explain the contrasting responses of pinon and juniper in the early 2000s drought in New Mexico. The concept links plant drought response to measurable ecohydrological variables. Based on these measurements, plants can be categorized into isohydric and anisohydric species. An isohydric species is more likely to develop carbon starvation, while an anisohydric species tends to develop hydraulic failure in a drought.

More broadly, I like Kirchner 2009, Catchments as simple dynamical systems: Catchment characterization, rainfall-runoff modeling, and doing hydrology backward, published in Water Resources Research. This paper demonstrates how the catchment water balance components can be resolved based on time series streamflow data only. I find the philosophic support in this paper for my own research approach in ecohydrology – conceptualizing the system in such a way that it can be investigated by easily obtainable data.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
When I have spare time, I like to walk and listen to music. But I don’t know much about music. A student once found that I kept listening to the same couple of songs for a whole semester!

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MEET A LEAF: LIZZIE GARDNER

5/13/2019

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Dr. Lizzie Gardner is an Aquatic Ecologist at the global independent design, engineering and architectural firm, Arup and a Postgraduate Research Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
To me, ecohydrology is a simple word that conveys an extremely complex subject in a way that a wider audience is more likely to understand. The relationship between wildlife and water often requires a scientific level of investigation to understand. Ecohydrology comprehensively captures the essence of this relationship, allowing us to simplify it in a way that ensures conservation is actioned. As an environmental consultant at Arup specializing in aquatic ecology with a background in conservation, ecohydrology helps me communicate, not only the complex processes, but the benefits of aquatic environments to clients and colleagues around the world.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I am triple graduate of University College London (UCL) in the UK, having completed a three year undergraduate BSc in geography, followed by a one year MSc in conservation and finally a PhD in ecohydrology and conservation. I did have some time ‘out’ of academia to do other things in between degrees, including a stint in wildlife film production, lobbying the UK government on behalf of nature conservation organisations, saving the endangered kiwi in New Zealand and running a sustainability event at the World Economic Forum.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
Luck! At least that’s what initially pops into my head. But when I really think about it, I suppose I’ve always had a close connection with water, having grown up on the south coast of England, taken part in an array of water sports and going to school right next to large river. Those experiences clearly sparked my interest, which was further developed at UCL where aquatic sciences are a big focus. It was during the start of my PhD when I began to research ecohydrology as a paradigm, and even attended the first widely known conference on the subject in the UK. Since then I have been developing my knowledge and continue to apply what I know in my job today. For example, helping conserve the endangered water vole in the UK (including those individuals that love a selfie in the pouring rain - see photo).

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
I see ecohydrology coming into its own as a discipline over the next couple of decades. The increasing appreciation for the environment, a better understanding of what lies below the water surface, and the growing concern amongst the public over the future of our planet, means its never been better to be an ecohydrologist. My workload keeps growing. For us to be successful in the long term, however, we need to get better at communicating the science and practice of ecohydrology to individuals, organisations and governments across the world.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
I’m going to throw in a slight curve ball as I believe sometimes we should take our thinking beyond single subjects. I often turn to alternative sources to keep up with the latest thinking in other disciplines to ensure I don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. In this case the huge threats the world faces from climate change to biodiversity decline and pollution of aquatic environments. For me, the paper that stands out is actually the first scientific journal article I ever read during my first week at UCL: ‘the tragedy of the commons’ by the American ecologist and philosopher Garrett Hardin in 1968. The tragedy of the commons is a ‘situation in a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action’ (Lloyd, 1833). The theory originated in an essay written as long ago as 1833, by the British economist William Forster Lloyd, who used a hypothetical example of the effects of unregulated grazing on common land in Great Britain and Ireland. It’s ever increasing relevance to today’s world has stuck with me.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
My husband calls me a scientific artist. Probably rightly so, as in the evenings and weekends (if I’m not pottering around in the garden or cooking up a storm in the kitchen), I like to paint. Usually natural scenes such as animal portraits and landscapes in oils and acrylics. I’m also often seen with a camera attached to me, most recently whilst traveling around Sri Lanka. Fortunately we were there just prior to the horrific Easter Sunday attacks. What happened there is so sad. The country is truly magical and I could not stop photographing all the amazing sights, people and wildlife that fabulous country has to offer. I would return there in an instant and encourage others to do the same.

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MEET A LEAF: SCOTT ALLEN

5/6/2019

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Dr. Scott Allen is a post doctoral scholar at ETH Zurich (and soon to be at the University of Utah).

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
To me, ecohydrology can be defined as the study of water as it relates to living environments. Of course, this means that much of hydrology overlaps with ecohydrology, and thus the term “ecohydrologist” often says very little about someone’s topic of study. Regardless of what “ecohydrology” does communicate, in practice, the ecohydrology community seems to collect researchers that share interests in tackling diverse interdisciplinary environmental questions. It’s interesting and exciting to be part of a community where our backgrounds and interests diverge so strongly.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
As an undergrad at the University of Maryland, I spent three years in a civil / construction engineering program, and then another year and a half studying biogeography and climate science, which (somehow) resulted in a degree in Environmental Science from the College of Behavior and Social Science. I received my MS degree in Water Resource Engineering while in the Forest Ecosystems and Society department at Oregon State University. Then I received my PhD in Renewable Natural Resources with a concentration in watershed science from Louisiana State University.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
There was no single epiphany that led me to ecohydrology. I became interested in forests and drought while working for the US forest service in summers when I was in college. That experience led to me transitioning from engineering to environmental science. Then in ecology and climate-science classes, sections on physiological ecology and vegetation-climate interactions fascinated me. I had no idea what I was looking for when I applied to MS programs, but when I received the offer to study forest ecohydrology at Oregon State, I knew that was what I wanted to do.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
I think we need to better understand vegetation’s role in the restoration of water provisioning by degraded landscapes, although this area of research is more timeless than it is “emerging”. We know that (often-anthropogenic) disturbances reduce soil infiltration and storage capacity, altering the timing and size of flows. It is well known that this timing is modified by plants because infiltration and storage capacity increase as roots establish; however, the controls over that hydrologic recovery are not well understood. For example, I think that several recent papers on degraded tropical ecosystems (by van Meerveld, Bruijnzeel and others) are crucial for not only advancing our basic understanding, but also for managing environmental resources and protecting vulnerable livelihoods.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
Jarvis and McNaughton’s “Stomatal Control of Transpiration: Scaling up from leaf to region” (1986) was pivotal for my thinking on the feedbacks between transpiration and vapor pressure. It provides a great discussion on the interactions between transpiration and evaporative demand across various boundary layers. Also, many papers about forest resource use efficiency by Dan Binkley and colleagues have been crucial in shaping my perspectives on the relationship between energy, structure, and growth.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I like woodworking – some sculpture, but I most enjoy making furniture out some odd scavenged logs, using a chainsaw, planer, and belt sander.

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MEET A LEAF: Femeena Pandara Valappil

MEET A LEAF: HUADE GUAN

MEET A LEAF: LIZZIE GARDNER

MEET A LEAF: SCOTT ALLEN

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