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Book chapter
Terrestrial ecohydrology in an era of transformational change
Routledge Handbook of Terrestrial Ecohydrology, pp.567-584
Routledge as part of the Taylor and Francis Group, 1st
2026
Abstract
Terrestrial ecohydrology is central to understanding and managing today’s rapid environmental change. This chapter distils this book’s insights around one overarching reality—transformational change—and three cross-cutting themes: non-linear behaviour (including thresholds and tipping points), connectivity, and spatial heterogeneity and scaling. Transformational change arises when disturbance or management rewires the partitioning of rainfall among interception, infiltration, storage, runoff, and return to the atmosphere, with consequences that propagate from plots to regions. Non-linear behaviour emerges as feedbacks among vegetation, water, and energy concentrate stress; thresholds are crossed when buffering stores in trees, soils, weathered bedrock, and shallow aquifers are exhausted; resilience reflects the recoverable “headroom” in those stores. Connectivity governs the routing of water, sediment, energy, and nutrients—from canopy to soil, through subsurface stores and channels, and into the atmosphere—thereby determining who gets water, in what amounts, and when. Spatial heterogeneity sets the scales at which processes operate, and reliable inference depends on matching those process scales with model resolution and measurement footprints and reporting outcomes as probability distributions rather than single values. We close by offering practical design rules and monitoring portfolios, and by posing open questions that link local interventions to regional, downstream, and downwind benefits in water security, heat mitigation, and ecosystem stability.
Details
- Title
- Terrestrial ecohydrology in an era of transformational change
- Authors/Creators
- Irena F. Creed - University of TorontoBradford P. Wilcox - Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University, United StatesHeidi Asbjornsen - University of New HampshireLixin Wang - Indiana University IndianapolisKeith R. Smettem - Murdoch University, School of Agricultural Sciences
- Contributors
- Bradford P. Wilcox (Editor)Heidi Asbjornsen (Editor) - University of New HampshireIrena F Creed (Editor) - University of TorontoLixin Wang (Editor) - Indiana University IndianapolisKeith Smettem (Editor) - Murdoch University, School of Agricultural Sciences
- Publication Details
- Routledge Handbook of Terrestrial Ecohydrology, pp.567-584
- Publisher
- Routledge as part of the Taylor and Francis Group
- Edition
- 1st
- Number of pages
- 18
- Identifiers
- 991005909766407891
- Copyright
- © 2026 Informa UK Limited
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Agricultural Sciences; Murdoch University
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
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