Blog Archives

MEET A LEAF: Pierre Gentine

8/30/2021

Dr. Pierre Gentine is the Maurice Ewing and J. Lamar Worzel Professor at Columbia University.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
How plants regulates the exchange of water at the land surface and therefore the coupled exchanges of energy and carbon.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
My undergraduate degree is in engineering and applied mathematics. My MSc and PhD were in Civil Engineering at MIT. I started an MSc in theoretical physics but left as I wanted to work on something more applicable to daily problems.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
I first got interested in water after working in Morocco, as water is very scarce there. Then I started thinking about the exchange of energy and water at the land surface and it became clear to me that vegetation was the key regulator of those exchanges and thus that I had to study this as a coupled system, the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
I think carbon cycle research and the importance of water in this cycle will remain prominent for the next few years.

Climate change and how it affects through a myriad of processes the water and carbon cycle as well as landscape is also going to be a key area of research.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
Maybe my favorite paper(s) would be the one and unique series of papers from Eagleson (1978). They introduced many (if not most) modern concepts in hydrology, from stochastic rainfall, to vegetation interaction and annual water balance. Many recent papers are following on this pioneering work, yet sometimes are not aware of this initial work.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I like running, skiing, hiking with my wife, listening to some good music (all the time especially when I am working), spending time with my family and friends, traveling and discovering new places (before COVID at least).

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MEET A LEAF: Julia Green

8/23/2021

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In July 2021, Dr. Green finished a postdoctoral research position at Le Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE) with Philippe Ciais and Ashley Ballantyne. She is starting a new research position at the end of August in Trevor Keenan’s group at UC Berkeley.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
To me, ecohydrology is the study of how ecosystems (specifically soil and vegetation) and the water cycle interact and modify one another. As others have said, it is an interdisciplinary area of research that includes atmospheric science, plant physiology, soil science, etc. For my work, I have also focused on how ecohydrology interacts with our global carbon cycle, and its ties to anthropogenic climate change.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
My undergraduate degree was from Tufts University in Civil Engineering. Then I have a MS, MPhil, and PhD from Columbia University in Earth and Environmental Engineering.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
I have always enjoyed being in nature and the outdoors, and I learned from a young age the importance of protecting our planet. As I grew up, I also became aware of threats to the places I loved caused by deforestation and anthropogenically caused climate change.

Ecohydrology seemed like an obvious career choice for me, because it has allowed me to combine my passion for protecting the environment with the tools and problem-solving skills to do just that. It is still unclear if many ecosystems will be able to adapt and/or acclimate to a changing climate. In turn, it is also unclear how the responses of ecosystems to climate change will then feed-back on our carbon and water cycles. These are the sorts of research topics that I explore in my work. In doing so, I am contributing to improving our ability to understand and model these changes, giving us the opportunity to develop the best climate mitigation and policy to protect people and the environment.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
An emerging area is the use of new and improved remote sensing and reanalysis products to monitor vegetation status and diagnose water stress. The number of products available is increasing, while the temporal and spatial resolutions available are becoming finer. Meanwhile, reanalysis products are also being improved with time records continuously extending allowing for more robust studies. These products are expanding our capabilities to understand and monitor the interactions between ecosystems and the hydrologic cycle. I think that there is great potential for increasing our ability to understand our natural world with these new and improved products.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
One of the papers that I enjoyed reading was “Examining the evidence for decoupling between photosynthesis and transpiration during heat extremes”. In this paper they discuss several observational studies that demonstrated decoupling between plant photosynthesis and transpiration during heat extremes—that is, while photosynthesis was observed to decrease in high temperatures, transpiration was observed to either be sustained or increased. From there, they tested whether they could detect the same decoupling at the canopy scale using flux tower data.

While the study results were not entirely conclusive, I enjoyed the paper for two reasons—firstly, it highlights the importance and some of the struggle between scaling between leaf and canopy scale, which is so important in the field of ecohydrology. Secondly, because it is just one example of how unique certain types of vegetation are, and really just how interesting different plant behavior can be (most plants decrease their transpiration rates as photosynthesis declines, at least at the same air dryness)! I found this plant response to heat somewhat counterintuitive, but in a way, it also made so much sense. Anyway, the paper left me thinking just how cool plants really are—and also how important it is for scientists to have an understanding of ecohydrology across spatial and temporal scales to really understand the whole story.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I’m a big road cyclist, outdoors enthusiast, and I love to travel and explore new places. A perfect vacation for me would involve long bike rides, hiking in the mountains, and exploring new cities. Also, seeing family and friends is always great.

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MEET A LEAF: Keith Smettem

8/16/2021

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Dr. Keith Smettem is Professor and Water for Food Program Leader, Institute of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
When we launched the journal Ecohydrology a number of years ago there was a lengthy debate about this among the associate editors and myself. To date, I have really seen no need to change two of core statements:

Ecohydrology seeks to increase interdisciplinary insights by placing particular emphasis on interactions and associated feedbacks in both space and time between ecological systems and the hydrological cycle. Research in both terrestrial and aquatic systems is of interest provided it explicitly links ecological systems and the hydrologic cycle.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
BSc in Geography from Swansea University Wales and PhD in Hydrology from Sheffield University U.K.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
My early career was in Soil Physics and Physical Hydrology. I was particularly interested in how soil structure and macropore patterns influenced water and chemical transport processes and how near-saturated hydraulic properties could be measured and incorporated into flow and chemical transport models. After about 20 years of work in that area I ‘upscaled’ to consider the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum and larger scale catchment hydrologic processes. At about the same time I started some research interactions with foresters interested in how to best identify areas for new plantation forestry in South-West Australia.

Our region is also a ‘canary in the coalmine’ for evaluating how climate change is affecting forests and streamflow because rainfall has been declining since the mid-1970s and temperature has been rising. So, the transition to Forest ecohydrologic work was a natural next step and this has now extended into how regional climate change is impacting on both natural and replanted forests. Work has also expanded to consider broad-scale restoration of degraded lands through reforestation and carbon sequestration and I also have interests in ecohydrologic feedbacks induced by soil water repellency in natural ecosystems.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
I am going to take a different perspective to other LEAFS here because I believe that for ecohydrology to grow, THE important emerging area is how to teach and incorporate Ecohydrology into the University curriculum. The multi-disciplinary nature of Ecohydrology poses a problem but is not insurmountable. Breaking it down there are two main threads: terrestrial ecohydrology and aquatic ecohydrology. The former requires skills in soil and environmental physics, plant physiology, hydrology and remote sensing. The latter adds skills and understanding of hydrobiology, river management and restoration and possibly limnology. Many of the pressing environmental problems of our time require these skillsets to address them and yet at present no course like this exists anywhere in the world.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
Peter Eagleson’s book ‘Ecohydrology: Darwinian Expression of Vegetation Form and Function’ influenced my thinking about productivity maximization as a target and what constrains this objective. It is particularly relevant when thinking about how ecosystems respond and adjust to climate change and how revegetation schemes can fail if the environmental settings are unrealistic and/or poorly understood.

Choat et al. (2012) Global convergence in the vulnerability of forests to drought. Nature. 491. 10.1038/nature11688. This letter showed how hydraulic safety margins across all world forest biomes are largely independent of mean annual precipitation and thus equally vulnerable to hydraulic failure regardless of their current rainfall environment.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
Well I am a fly fishing nut, so I do get to see first hand how humans and climate are impacting salmonid distributions around the world.

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MEET A LEAF: Lorrayne Miralha

8/9/2021

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Lorrayne Miralha is a Ph.D. Candidate at Arizona State University and a soon to be Postdoctoral Researcher at Oregon State University (Nov 2021)!

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Scientifically speaking, Ecohydrology is the discipline that addresses the interconnection between the environment and water fluxes. For me, ecohydrology goes beyond the investigation of these interlinks. Ecohydrology is the link between my professional and personal life. I love studying how the environment mechanisms are interconnected with hydrological processes in the face of human interventions. Investigating these relationships is crucial to develop solutions for a more sustainable future. Ecohydrology allows me to do that, and I am grateful for all the scientists that have contributed to a better understanding of the effects of hydrological processes on ecosystem functions.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I got my undergraduate degree in Forest Engineering from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ) together with an exchange program at Oregon State University. I have a Master’s in Physical Geography from the University of Kentucky and almost a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Arizona State University.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
I grew up in a rural area (small fruit farm) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. While growing up, I was curious about the plant mechanisms and how trees used to produce what I was seasonally harvesting. Over time, I saw a shift in my farm’s landscape. I saw trees drying out, wildfires happening with more frequency, and our small pond turning to foamy green. This is one of the reasons I became a forest engineer and got a master’s in geography. My master’s mentor, Dr. Daehyun Kim, opened my eyes to the spatial phenomena and their unexplored interlinks with water quality. I felt that everything I learned was helping me find the answers and solutions to my own farm back in Brazil. Today, together with my mentor Dr. Rebecca Muenich, I went beyond local scale understanding. I developed regional and national scale models to better understand the impact of specific water pollution driving agents and how this pollution holds over time and space. I like to call myself a watershed modeler and a geospatial data enthusiast, and I see much yet to be studied within climate, hydrological processes, and human interventions.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
With rising temperatures and more frequent extreme events, there is a lot we need to understand to develop environmental solutions. With the intensification of hydrological phenomena, most of the ecosystems interlinks we know may be jeopardized. I see the field growing towards interlinks among nutrient interactions, climate, human interventions, and most importantly spatial and temporal correlations among all these phenomena, I believe understanding these interconnections will help us better describe tipping points and develop more assertive solutions.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
It is hard to choose only one. I am very impressed by the work of Dr. Marie-Josée Fortin. Her research, in general, has guided me through my first year in graduate school, principally her book Spatial Analysis: a guide for ecologists, that until this day, I keep referring to for refreshing spatial modeling concepts and rules of thumb for spatial analysis and phenomena. Additionally, one of my favorite papers is by Dr. Jonathan D. Phillips “Badass Geomorphology”. This paper showed me how science can be playful and that your fluvial landscape may not always conform to the rules. It was an inspiring read in a moment I thought my science was too analytical and less insightful. I am also very impressed by the work of my mentors. I have learned a lot from both Dr. Kim and Dr. Muenich’s research. “A quantitative approach to evaluating ecosystem services“ by Dr. Rebecca L. Muenich brings a very interesting methodological framework to compare trade-offs in ecosystem services between land-use scenarios and watersheds. This paper brings the dynamics we should account for when talking about solutions for sustainable outcomes. I also like the overview paper by Wurtsbaugh, Paerl, and Dodds (2019) on Nutrients, eutrophication, and harmful algal blooms from the freshwater to marine continuum.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I’ve always loved exploring my surroundings. I am very fortunate because I am not only from South America, but I also had the chance to live I have lived in 4 states in the US with very distinct geographies (Oregon, Kentucky, Michigan, and Arizona). I enjoy road trips and hiking. Some of my favorite adventures were visiting the Crater Lake National Park, the Red River Gorge, Sequoia National Park, and all the lakes in the Great Lakes region.

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MEET A LEAF: Phoebe Morton

8/2/2021

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Dr. Phoebe Morton is a Higher Scientist Officer (essentially a postdoc) in the Agri-Environment Branch at the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute in Northern Ireland, currently working within the Air Quality team. Twitter: @PhoebeM_AFBI

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Ecohydrology is the study of the ways in which water (both quantity and quality) affect plant, animal and fungal ecology and the ecosystems which they inhabit – and how these in turn affect the water. Fundamentally, it is the linkage of water and life, which is rather important since without water, there is no life.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
BSc in Biology (with a year in industry) at the University of York, UK.
PhD in Environmental Science with a thesis entitled “A Burning Issue: Assessing the impact of alternative grouse moor managements on vegetation dynamics and carbon cycling on UK blanket bogs” at the University of York, UK.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
That’s a really interesting question since when I was asked to write this, I initially denied being an ecohydrologist! To be honest, I’m not sure I’d ever really heard of ecohydrology as a discipline! However, once I started thinking about it, I realixed I’ve certainly dabbled in ecohydrology, even if I’m not a fully paid-up member.

During my undergraduate degree, I had the opportunity to do a year in “industry” as part of the degree and ended up with a placement at the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust in the Highlands of Scotland. Whilst most of what I did involved radio-tracking grouse, I was constantly surrounded by peatlands, many of which were burnt to encourage heather plants to feed grouse for the shooting industry, and I became interested in these ecosystems.

This led me to a PhD looking at the impacts on carbon and vegetation dynamics of burning and other alternative managements on peatlands that were being managed as grouse moors. Given peat can be up to 97% water, inevitably hydrology came into it, and I ended up combining everything in a study looking at how peatland management, vegetation type and water table impact the measurable volume of peat (the surface really does “breathe” in line with water dynamics) and hence the calculated quantities of stored carbon.

I continued with the hydrological theme in a postdoc at Ulster University/the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, monitoring the effects of a financial incentive scheme in agricultural areas on the Irish border on water quality. In the Source to Tap project (www.sourcetotap.eu), we specifically targeted pesticide, color and turbidity reduction in the river water, which is abstracted for drinking. I’m currently working on the rather different topic of abating ammonia emissions from agriculture but, given how wet it usually is on the island of Ireland, I’m sure some ecohydrology will creep into it soon enough.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
Given my rather peat-y background, I think a really important area of ecohydrology that needs exploring is what will happen to peatlands across the world under different weather patterns. Certainly Sphagnum-based peatlands (which encompasses most northern hemisphere peatlands – although there are others in the tropics) tend to exist in a relatively cool and damp climate envelope. Theoretically, they can shift location as the climate changes – but human activities have already stressed many peatlands and urban and industrial developments potentially mean there is nowhere for some to go.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain.
It’s not a paper but actually a report. Peatbogs and Carbon: A critical synthesis by Richard Lindsay (2010) (https://repository.uel.ac.uk/item/862y6)[MP1] details pretty much anything you need to know about peatbogs, from the basics of their hydrological functioning, though typical vegetation assemblages, carbon storage and carbon accumulation to the effects of a multitude of different (largely anthropogenic) pressures on peatlands. This is a document I’ve returned to time and time again, to the point where it became known by a few of us during my PhD as “The Bog Bible”!

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I enjoy being outside and regularly go walking and exploring different corners of Northern Ireland and, when travel restrictions allow, the Republic of Ireland. I also scuba dive, mainly in the UK (yes, it may be cold and dark, but is more beautiful than and probably as diverse as many warmer locations), and occasionally go open-water swimming in the sea. More recently, I have got into yoga and (pre-Covid) pottery.

[MP1]This is probably a bit weird to put in a repository link but it is the most stable link I can find to it and the webpage contains two different links to pdfs of the report that work, which is better than it used to be!

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MEET A LEAF: Pierre Gentine

MEET A LEAF: Julia Green

MEET A LEAF: Keith Smettem

MEET A LEAF: Lorrayne Miralha

MEET A LEAF: Phoebe Morton

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