Carter Berry is a Research Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University.

Abhilash Singh is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal, India. (Twitter: @MrIfAndOnlyIf) (Website: https://www.abhilashsingh.net)

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
For me, ecohydrology is a relatively new field which has piqued my interest because it is and will be the need of the hour in our highly degrading and modified biosphere. I see a bright future in the field of eco-hydrology due to its flexibility in integrating different scientific disciplines in problem solving. The spatio-temporal interaction between ecological systems and the hydrological cycle, which facilitates us to understand the interface between ecology, hydrology, and the associated application, is the new frontier in Human Landscapes studies.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I have completed an integrated Master of Technology (B.Tech.+ M.Tech.) degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering with specialization in Wireless Communication and Networks from Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida, India in 2017. I was the recipient of the gold medal award in the university. Presently, I am pursuing a Ph.D. from the Department of Earth and Environment Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal. Where I am working on "Potential of dual-frequency polarimetry Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data processing to estimate soil moisture and its application in drainage congestion, waterlogging, and flood prediction using deep learning" under the supervision of Dr. Kumar Gaurav.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
Being an interdisciplinary researcher, I love to explore the possible connection between two different physical processes, such as connecting the surface soil moisture with waterlogging problem. This further raised my curiosity on a contemporary health issue in the region which led to connecting waterlogging with the number of malaria cases or with groundwater contamination.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
From my point of view, the study of the dynamics of surface and subsurface soil moisture, drainage congestion, and waterlogging is one of the most emerging areas mainly because these factors affect ecohydrological processes such as infiltration, surface runoff, evaporation, and plant morphology & function (i.e., transpiration rate).
 
Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
After my masters, I was a complete novice in this particular field, so my interest were objective driven. However, a work on the impact of flow regulation on the habitat of the Ganga River dolphin by Sonkar and Gaurav published in the River Research Application caught my attention. Their simple yet novel work inspired me to look beyond the scope of my research practice and indulge in asking more biodiversity-oriented research questions. Integrating the real time impact of man-made environmental issue on the ecology of a hydrological system is the need of the hour for any eco-sensitive zone. Another work, if I must mention is The Natural Flow Regime by Poff et al., 1997, which is quite known in the scientific community. This work provided an insight to a novice like me trying to understand dynamics between river hydrology and ecology and the necessary aspects one must take into consideration when working in eco-hydrology.

References:
Sonkar, G. K., & Gaurav, K. (2020). Assessing the impact of large barrages on habitat of the Ganga River dolphin. River Research and Applications, 36(9), 1916–1931.
Poff, N. L., Allan, J. D., Bain, M. B., Karr, J. R., Karen, L., Richter, B. D., Sparks, R. E., Stromberg, J. C., Poff, N. L., Allan, J. D., Bain, M. B., Karr, J. R., Prestegaard, K. L., Richter, B. D., Sparks, R. E., & Stromberg, J. C. (1997). The natural flow regime. A paradigm for river conservation and restoration. Oxford Journals, 47(11), 769–784.

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I love to write scientific blogs on Medium (https://abhilash-singh.medium.com/). Apart from this, I enjoy spending time on learning other languages.

Dr. Safeeq Khan is a Cooperative Extension Specialist and Adjunct Professor of Water and Watershed Sciences in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of California, Merced.

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
For me, ecohydrology means studying how water and vegetation interact across a range of settings and scales and the degree to which these interactions are altered and reshaped by human actions, both direct and indirect. Ecohydrology also means working with our stakeholders in developing data and solutions to help inform ecosystem management and build resilience.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I have a B.Tech (2003) in Agricultural Engineering from CSA University of Agriculture & Technology and a M.Tech (2005) in Agricultural Systems Management from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, both from India. After a brief period working in the industry, I moved to the University of Hawaii at Manoa and graduated with a PhD (2010) in Natural Resources and Environmental Management.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
Trees and plants are mysterious, magical, and sophisticated, and deserve much more appreciation than they receive. From single-celled algae to the giant sequoia, everything seems to be ostensibly defying the laws of physics. Add soil and water to the mix and now you have something that is even more magical and mysterious, aka the field of ecohydrology. For me, this appreciation for trees and plant and how they interact with their environment goes back to my early days growing up in a farming family in the rural North India. Like most farm kids, I was juggling between school and helping my family by working on the farm. Chasing wetting fronts inside furrows and fields during irrigation and running in freshly harvested rice fields to experience the splashing of saps from stumps continuing to push water and nutrients from roots to the leaves were the favorite pastime. Observing plants perking right back up from wilt within minutes after irrigation and comparing shades of roots with iron plaquing were no less than miracles. Of course, at that time I had no idea of sap or plant’s ability and endurance against stress.
 
These early experiences, however, certainly shaped my curiosity and early education, but it was not until I started the graduate school that I learned about the role of humans in actively reshaping our planet and saw research as a career. Much credit goes to my advisor Professor BS Das at IIT Kharagpur, who really exposed me to the field of ecohydrology (or soil physics as he would like to call) and science. He is the one who introduced me the idea of macropores, how plants utilize it to their advantage, and giving me the opportunity to perform my first tracer test. In my early days I saw earthworms and other forms of soil life as villains trying to destroy embankments and draining water, but the close examination changed my views. Soil organisms turned out to be real heroes, particularly earthworms. At the end of my masters, Professor Das gave me the opportunity to work on land-use and erosion issues related to Chilika Lake, Asia's largest brackish water lagoon in eastern India. Degradation of such a beautiful lake was saddening to observe but seeing some of the ecohydrological solutions implemented by the locals gave me a hope. I carried these experiences and skills to the other side of the world in Hawaii where my PhD advisor Professor Ali Fares gave me the opportunity to investigate the role of invasive species and human activities to hydrological cycle. Professor Tom Giambelluca selflessly taught me canopy water balance 101. Doing a PhD on a small island had its disadvantages, especially during the pre-zoom era, but looking back, I feel like small places like these give you the real opportunity to engage with local people and learn native ways of interacting with nature and preserving/managing our natural resources. I finished my PhD with a realization that we cannot fully understand the interaction between vegetation and water without considering the role of humans. Humans are essential elements of ecohydrology and altering the system at a faster rate than nature.
 
Shaped by this realization, much of my current work has been largely influenced by Professor Gordon Grant, my postdoc advisor at the Oregon State, and Professor Naomi Tague at UC Santa Barbara. These two scientific giants introduced me to the world of forest management and the role of local settings, geology in particular, and critical zone in modulating the interactions between vegetation and water under natural and disturbed conditions. While Professor Gordon Grant gave me the freedom to expand my wings and fly on my own (THANK YOU Gordon), Professor Naomi Tague introduced me to the world of ecohydrological modeling that I continue to use in my research lab.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
My personal bias is for disturbance ecohydrology. I do not think we fully understand the post-disturbance soil-water-vegetation interactions. In particular, the intricacies of roots in accessing and sharing resources like water. Managing our water resources while actively trying to achieve the climate change goals through carbon sequestration is another emerging area. Ecohydrology can offer a great deal in understanding water-carbon tradeoffs. Years of critical zone science has certainly improved our understanding of the subsurface, but transferability and scaling continue to pose challenges. 

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
I do not have a favorite paper but much of my scientific thinking around ecohydrology has been shaped by Dr. Brent Newman’s paper “Ecohydrology of water-limited environments: A scientific vision”. This paper does a fantastic job in introducing the field of ecohydrology, discusses key scientific challenges, and identifies cross-cutting hurdles in addressing those challenges. Professor Ying Fan’s work on “Hydrologic regulation of plant rooting depth” does a fantastic job in describing roots from hydrologic lens. In my mind, these two papers are a must read for early career researchers looking for ideas. I have also enjoyed reading much of Dr. Nate McDowell and Dr. Craig Allen’s work related to droughts, in particular their paper “Mechanisms of plant survival and mortality during drought: why do some plants survive while others succumb to drought?”. 
 
Fan, Y., Miguez-Macho, G., Jobbágy, E. G., Jackson, R. B., & Otero-Casal, C. (2017). Hydrologic regulation of plant rooting depth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(40), 10572-10577.
McDowell, N., Pockman, W. T., Allen, C. D., Breshears, D. D., Cobb, N., Kolb, T., ... & Yepez, E. A. (2008). Mechanisms of plant survival and mortality during drought: why do some plants survive while others succumb to drought?. New phytologist, 178(4), 719-739.
Newman, B. D., Wilcox, B. P., Archer, S. R., Breshears, D. D., Dahm, C. N., Duffy, C. J., ... & Vivoni, E. R. (2006). Ecohydrology of water‐limited environments: A scientific vision. Water resources research, 42(6).
 
What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I enjoy watching nature documentaries along with hiking and exploring outdoors with my kids. 

Dr. Jorge M. Uuh Sonda is a CONACYT postdoctoral researcher in the Water Science and Environment Department at the Instituto Tecnologico de Sonora (ITSON), Mexico. @JorgeUuhSonda

What does ecohydrology mean to you?
For me, ecohydrology is the study of spatial and temporal patterns of hydrological and ecosystem processes, and how they couple and change with socio-environmental phenomena. It is a discipline that allows the study of different ecosystems  using a suite of approaches and tools, ranging from field instrumentation to remote sensing. To my own experience, ecohydrology studies the vertical mass fluxes of the exchanges of two priority gases, water and CO2 (as well as the energy involved in these processes) in dry tropical ecosystems that have very little information about it.

What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in?
I graduated from the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan (UADY) as an Engineering Physics. I received my M.Sc. degree in Astrophysics at the Universidad de Guanajuato (UG) and my Ph.D. degree in Engineering from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), with a dissertation entitled: “Spatial and temporal dynamics of water, carbon and energy fluxes at the surface-atmosphere interface in tropical systems. Yucatan Peninsula”.

How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology?
It was a lucky and unconventional opportunity. After finishing my M.Sc. degree, I was undecided whether to continue with the Astrophysics line (almost completely desktop work) or to return to my origins as an Engineer (fieldwork, play with scientific instruments). There were various personal reasons and the projections of an uncertain future that made me more inclined to return to Engineering. Fortunately, exist an excellent engineering institute, very close to where I was born and grew up, whose lines of research focused on subjects that I was very passionate about: Earth Sciences, Marine Sciences, and Atmospheric Science. That is how I met one of my mentors, Dr. Hugo Gutierrez, who proposed to me an Ecohydrology topic: implement a monitoring site with an Eddy Covariance system, to study the temporal dynamics of a dry tropical ecosystem in Yucatán. The challenge, which meant for me a complete change of research area, as well as starting a project of which I had little background, made it become an exciting area with many opportunities. Sometime later another of my mentors, Dr. Bernardo Figueroa, joined this project, with whom I did much of the fieldwork that I like so much.

What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology?
I think that the ecohydrology of coastal and tropical dry systems, especially in Mexico, is an area of ​​great opportunity. Mainly because few sites have been studied from an ecohydrological perspective.

Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper?  Describe/explain.
I don't have a favorite paper, but I really enjoy reading the works of the ITSON ecohydrology group, those of Dr. Zulia Sanchez, Dr. Luis Mendez, Dr. Enrico Yepez, and his students. To mention one, the paper by Granados-Martínez et al., 2021, entitled "Environmental Controls on the Temporal Evolution of Energy and CO2 Fluxes on an Arid Mangrove of Northwestern Mexico", which shows the results of the first Eddy Covariance site in a mangrove from the Mexican Pacific, a feat that I had the joy of knowing personally.

Reference: Granados-Martínez, K. P., Yépez, E. A., Sánchez-Mejía, Z. M., Gutiérrez-Jurado, H. A., & Méndez-Barroso, L. A. (2021). Environmental controls on the temporal evolution of energy and CO2 fluxes on an arid mangrove of Northwestern Mexico. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 126, e2020JG005932. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JG005932

What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)?
I enjoy watching TV series, going to the movies with my girlfriend, and drinking a good beer with friends (if it is handmade, better). In sports, I like football soccer, and squash. I love to travel and see new places.