Moving beyond heterogeneity and process complexity: A new vision for watershed hydrology

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Read Full Article (file size: 104092 bytes) Cited by WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH, VOL. 43, W07301, doi:10.1029/2006WR005467, 2007 Moving beyond heterogeneity and process complexity: A new vision for watershed hydrology J. J. McDonnell Water Resources Section, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands M. Sivapalan Department of Geography and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA K. Vaché Institute for Landscape Ecology and Resources Management, University of Gießen, Gießen, Germany S. Dunn Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen, UK G. Grant United States Forest Service, Corvallis, Oregon, USA R. Haggerty Department of Geosciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA C. Hinz School of Earth and Geographical Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia R. Hooper Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrological Sciences, Inc., Washington, D. C., USA J. Kirchner Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA M. L. Roderick Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia J. Selker Department of Biological and Ecological Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA M. Weiler Department of Forest Resources Management and Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Abstract Field studies in watershed hydrology continue to characterize and catalogue the enormous heterogeneity and complexity of rainfall runoff processes in more and more watersheds, in different hydroclimatic regimes, and at different scales. Nevertheless, the ability to generalize these findings to ungauged regions remains out of reach. In spite of their apparent physical basis and complexity, the current generation of detailed models is process weak. Their representations of the internal states and process dynamics are still at odds with many experimental findings. In order to make continued progress in watershed hydrology and to bring greater coherence to the science, we need to move beyond the status quo of having to explicitly characterize or prescribe landscape heterogeneity in our (highly calibrated) models and in this way reproduce process complexity and instead explore the set of organizing principles that might underlie the heterogeneity and complexity. This commentary addresses a number of related new avenues for research in watershed science, including the use of comparative analysis, classification, optimality principles, and network theory, all with the intent of defining, understanding, and predicting watershed function and enunciating important watershed functional traits. Received 28 August 2006; accepted 15 March 2007; published 26 July 2007. Keywords: hydrological cycles and budgets; catchment; ungauged basins. Index Terms: 1836 Hydrology: Hydrological cycles and budgets (1218, 1655); 1804 Hydrology: Catchment; 1874 Hydrology: Ungaged basins. Read Full Article (file size: 104092 bytes) Cited by Citation: McDonnell, J. J., et al. (2007), Moving beyond heterogeneity and process complexity: A new vision for watershed hydrology, Water Resour. Res., 43, W07301, doi:10.1029/2006WR005467. Copyright 2007 by the American Geophysical Union.

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