Dryland Ecohydrology and Climate Change: Critical Issues and Technical Advances

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.
, 16, 2585–2603, 2012

www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/ Hydrology and
doi:10.5194/hess-16-2585-2012 Earth System
© Author(s) 2012. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Sciences
Dryland ecohydrology and climate change: critical issues and

technical advances
L. Wang1,2 , P. D’Odorico3 , J. P. Evans4 , D. J. Eldridge5 , M. F. McCabe1 , K. K. Caylor6 , and E. G. King7
1 Water Research Center, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney,
NSW, 2052, Australia
2 Department of Earth Sciences, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI), Indianapolis,
Indiana 46202, USA

3 Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA
4 Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia
5 School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia
6 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA
7 Odum School of Ecology and Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens,
GA, 30602, USA
Correspondence to: L. Wang (w.lixin@gmail.com)
Received: 2 April 2012 – Published in Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss.: 16 April 2012
Revised: 13 July 2012 – Accepted: 18 July 2012 – Published: 9 August 2012
Abstract. Drylands cover about 40 % of the terrestrial land 1 Introduction

surface and account for approximately 40 % of global net
primary productivity. Water is fundamental to the biophys-
ical processes that sustain ecosystem function and food pro- Drylands are regions with relatively low precipitation, long
duction, particularly in drylands where a tight coupling ex- dry spells (e.g., dry seasons), and frequent occurrence of wa-
ists between ecosystem productivity, surface energy balance, ter scarce conditions. They are typically located in areas of
biogeochemical cycles, and water resource availability. Cur- prevalent divergence in the patterns of atmospheric circula-
rently, drylands support at least 2 billion people and comprise tion, on the lee side (“rain shadow”) of mountain chains, in
both natural and managed ecosystems. In this synthesis, we arid continental regions, or in the proximity of cold ocean
identify some current critical issues in the understanding of surfaces. The drylands definition is often based on total an-
dryland systems and discuss how arid and semiarid environ- nual precipitation being low relative to potential evapotran-
ments are responding to the changes in climate and land use. spiration (ET). To this end an aridity index (AI), defined as
The issues range from societal aspects such as rapid popu- the ratio between precipitation and potential ET, is used to
lation growth, the resulting food and water security, and de- classify drylands as regions where the AI is smaller than 0.65
velopment issues, to natural aspects such as ecohydrological (e.g., sub-humid dryland, semi-arid dryland).
consequences of bush encroachment and the causes of de- Drylands collectively cover about 40 % of the terrestrial
sertification. To improve current understanding and inform land surface (Table 1) and contribute approximately 40 % of
upon the needed research efforts to address these critical is- global net primary productivity (Grace et al., 2006). Veg-
sues, we identify some recent technical advances in terms of etation dynamics exert a strong control on the water cycle
monitoring dryland water dynamics, water budget and veg- in drylands, due in part to the tight coupling that exists be-
etation water use, with a focus on the use of stable isotopes tween the water, energy, and biogeochemical budgets in these
and remote sensing. These technological advances provide systems (Noy-Meir, 1973; Austin et al., 2004; Wang et al.,
new tools that assist in addressing critical issues in dryland 2009a; Tietjen et al., 2010). For example, in the Mojave
ecohydrology under climate change. desert of the southwest United States, elevated winter precip-
itation stimulated a rapid increase in vegetation productivity,
Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.

2586 L. Wang et al.: Dryland ecohydrology
Table 1. The classification, percentage of global land area and percentage of global population of each dryland type. Data are from United
Nation’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) and Gilbert (2011).
Dryland Classification Aridity Index (AI) Global Land Area (%) Global Population (%)
Dry subhumid 0.50 < AI < 0.65 9.9 % 15.3 %
Semi-arid 0.20 < AI < 0.50 17.7 % 14.4 %
Arid 0.05 < AI < 0.20 12.1 % 4.1 %
Hyper-arid AI < 0.05 7.5 % 1.7 %
which in turn reduced soil water storage by half – compared limited ecosystems (Rodriguez-Iturbe, 2000; D’Odorico et
to a paired unvegetated site – and precluded deep drainage al., 2010a). Currently, drylands support more than 2 billion
below the root zone (Scanlon et al., 2005). A converse ex- people and comprise both natural and managed ecosystems
ample would be the conversion of perennial vegetation to an- (MEA, 2005; Gilbert, 2011). Growing global populations
nual crops, which is typically associated with an increase in are expected to increase the pressure on these ecosystems,
groundwater recharge, and – in some cases – the rise of shal- thereby further exacerbating the already tight limitations im-
low water tables and salt accumulation at the ground surface, posed by water availability and food security. Thus, there is
as observed in many drylands around the world, including an urgent need for better management strategies to avoid the
the case of south western Australia. emergence of potential conflicts resulting from poor under-
Besides the strong linkage between water, energy and bio- standing of the underlying ecohydrological processes. With
geochemical fluxes, across-scale hydrological connectivity is increasing anthropogenic influences on hydrological cycles,
another important feature of arid and semiarid landscapes. research in ecohydrology is moving towards more human-
Hydrological connectivity is a system-level property that re- dominated landscapes (Jackson et al., 2009). Future envi-
sults from the linkages in the networks of water transport ronmental and socio-economic changes, such as rising CO2
through ecosystems, by which feedbacks and other emergent and temperature, changing rainfall patterns and even dietary
system behavior may be generated (Miller et al., 2012). Be- shifts are likely to have profound impacts on dryland ecosys-
cause of the low hydraulic conductivity of dry soils, the sub- tem dynamics. Many dryland savannas and mixed crop-
surface connectivity of arid and semiarid landscapes is gener- ping systems have a combination of different plant phys-
ally low when compared with their wet and subhumid coun- iognomies, including both C3 and C4 plants (Wang et al.,
terparts (Grayson et al., 1997). The connectivity provided by 2009b, 2010a). Since C3 and C4 plants respond to CO2 en-
surface waters is often intermittent or ephemeral and limited richment and temperature increase differently (Morgan et al.,
to wet periods or seasons when surface overland flow occurs 2011), the combination of plant physiognomy increases the
and the stream network is active. Hydrological connectivity complexity of managing and predicting dryland responses to
is not well characterized in most systems and the challenge future environmental changes.
of modeling hydrological connectivity lies in the poor un- Not unique to drylands, but equivalently important in arid
derstanding of cross-scale interdependencies of the processes and semiarid landscapes, scale and scaling is another impor-
controlling water fluxes from the soil to the plant and the at- tant issue in understanding and predicting ecohydrological
mosphere (e.g., Loik et al., 2004). Representing and synthe- processes (Seyfried and Wilcox, 1995; Becker and Braun,
sizing hydrological connectivity, from the point to the land- 1999). Scale is perceived differently by different researchers
scape scale, will require enhanced knowledge of connections and for different research purposes. From the perspective of
among hydrologic conditions, climate, vegetation, soil pro- a small lysimeter study, a catchment of the size of 1 km2
cesses, and landscape morphology. Recent efforts have been may be considered large and heterogeneous, whereas a sev-
focusing on better characterizing hydrological connectivity. eral thousand km2 basin may be considered small and ho-
For example, Wang et al. (2012a) developed a conceptual mogeneous for global simulations (Bergström and Graham,
framework for upscaling ecohydrological and biogeochem- 1998). In reality, processes are often observed at short time
ical processes from point to watershed scales using electri- scales and small spatial scales and predictions are made for
cal circuit analogies and Thévenin’s theorem, highlighting its long time scales and large spatial scales. To make this link,
utility to represent concomitant processes at both small and it is essential to understand how the nature of spatial vari-
large spatial scales. ability affects hydrological response over a range of scales,
Water is fundamental for biological processes responsible how to link the small-scale and large-scale observations and
for ecosystem function and food production, and for abi- where the uncertainty lies. Upscaling typically consists of
otic processes controlling the land-atmosphere interactions. two steps: distributing the small-scale parameter over the in-
Dryland ecohydrology describes the hydrologic mechanisms terested area and aggregating the spatial distribution of the
that underlie ecological patterns and processes in water- parameter into one single value; downscaling, on the other
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012 www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/

L. Wang et al.: Dryland ecohydrology 2587
hand, involves disaggregating and singling out (Blöschl and '&!"

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1449
will assist in addressing these critical issues in dryland eco-
hydrology. 1450 Fig. 1. Average global population density growth and population
1451 density
Figure 1. growth for dryland dominated countries (defined as where
dryland areas are larger than 50 % of the total areas). The in-
set represents the same information but excludes India and Pak-
2 Critical issues in drylands istan for better display of the other countries. The population

data is from the Department
54
of Economic and Social Affairs
2.1 Dryland population growth, water demands and of the United Nations (2004). http://www.un.org/esa/population/
dryland agriculture publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf.
Global water resources are inherently related to and affected

by population growth (Vörösmarty et al., 2000). Developing water intense diets, could be dramatic. For example, in China
nations account for 90 % of dryland populations. Figure 1 and India, the per capita water footprint is currently 1071
shows that a large proportion of dryland countries (i.e., coun- and 1089 m3 /person/year, respectively, while in the United
tries in which the dryland area exceeds 50 % of the total area, States it is 2842 m3 /person/year (Hoekstra and Mekonnen,
based on the definition provided in the Introduction) exhibit 2012). By 2050, the populations of China and India are pre-
a much higher population growth compared with the global dicted to reach 1.42 and 1.61 billion, respectively (the pop-
average. ulation data is from the State of World Population 2010). If
Water footprint is an indicator of water consumption that in these countries the per capita water footprint reaches the
includes both direct and indirect water use, and is defined as levels of the United States (this may not be achievable in re-
the total volume of freshwater used to produce the goods and ality due to the size of the population and low per capita eco-
services consumed by an individual or a community (Cha- nomic level in these countries), their freshwater consump-
pagain and Hoekstra, 2004; Liu and Savenije, 2008). Most tion would become at least three times larger than the current
of the human appropriation of freshwater resources is used rates. Since water resources are already under severe pres-
for food production (e.g., Falkenmark and Rockström, 2004). sure in both countries, meeting this future demand will be a
Without accounting for any change in the per capita water daunting challenge for the next generation.
footprint, the ongoing demographic growth is expected to in- Population growth in conjunction with an increase in per
crease the pressure exerted by humanity on the global water capita water use is affecting a number of dryland countries
resources. At the same time, however, it has been reported around the world. Food security is at risk when in these coun-
that economic growth is allowing some populations to have tries the available freshwater is not sufficient to produce the
access to more water intensive food commodities; the shift food needed by their populations. Severe water stress condi-
to more meat based diets will substantially increase the per tions are expected to cause malnourishment, famine, and so-
capita water use, further increasing the water footprint of hu- cial unrest. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Orga-
man societies (Liu et al., 2008; Strzepek and Boehlert, 2010). nization (FAO) predicts that by 2050 agriculture will have to
Changes in water consumption, induced by shifts to more support additional 2.7 billion people (FAO, 2006a). To feed
www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/ Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012

the increasing global population while eradicating malnour- uniquely associated with drylands (e.g., ephemeral streams)
ishment, the human appropriation of freshwater resources need to be considered and further explored.
needs to double within the next 40–50 yr (Falkenmark and Regardless of a possible increase in arable area, dryland
Rockström, 2004). Our ability to meet such demand is con- agriculture is expected to be particularly vulnerable to the
strained by the limited availability of accessible freshwater effect of climate and land use change. The effect of climate
resources on Earth. From the water perspective, an increase change on crop production is of considerable concern. Pre-
in food production can – in principle – be achieved by (1) in- dictions for the US central Great Plains indicate that the neg-
creasing irrigated land, (2) expanding croplands at the ex- ative effects of rising temperature on crop production will
penses of natural ecosystems, and (3) developing new tech- offset the positive impacts of CO2 increase (Ko et al., 2012).
nologies that enhance the water use efficiency of agricultural The effects of climate change are already being felt in the
production (“more crop per drop”) through genetically mod- global food markets, and are becoming particularly strong
ified crops or water saving agricultural techniques. However, in some dryland areas, where crops fail and yields decline
theses options are not without constraints. In terms of the (FAO, 2006a). In the semiarid tropics, smallholder farmers
first option, currently, 19 % of the global agricultural land is rely on extremely variable and uncertain rainfall regimes.
irrigated and produces 40 % of the world’s food supply (Han- The vulnerability is also contributed by soil salinization and
jra and Qureshi, 2010). Meeting the projected food demand other forms of human- or climate-induced land and water
solely by expanding irrigated areas is unfeasible (Falken- degradation. Future climate projections in drylands are un-
mark and Rockström, 2004). Irrigation requires water with- certain but indicate a possible increase in climate variability,
drawal from lakes, streams or groundwater. Globally, about a decrease in mean precipitation (Sheffield and Wood, 2007),
2600 km3 of water are already withdrawn every year for ir- the occurrence of more frequent droughts, and increased tem-
rigation (Strzepek and Boehlert, 2010). Agriculture accounts perature extremes (Schlenker and Lobell, 2010). All of these
for more than 66 % of the total human withdrawals. Most of factors will further exacerbate the vulnerability of agricul-
the rivers flowing through dryland regions are already inten- tural production in the dry tropics. For instance, in the near
sively exploited. Many of them (e.g., the Rio Grande or the future (20–30 yr) climate change is predicted to threaten food
Colorado River) barely make it to the ocean. An expansion of security in southern Africa (Lobell et al., 2008) and the Sahel
irrigation can contribute only in part to the projected increase (Patricola and Cook, 2010), while in other areas (e.g., cen-
in food demand. tral Africa), the uncertainty of these estimates is too large to
In terms of expanding croplands, there are only limited make informed decisions. In addition to changes in mean cli-
opportunities to increase agricultural production by sustain- mate conditions, changes in climate variability pose further
ably increasing the arable land and the global agricultural challenges on farmers who may be able to adapt to long-term
area is not expected to substantially increase (Fedoroff et al., changes but not to increases in interannual variability.
2010). However, drylands are often considered as possible Furthermore, the response to climate change in drylands
candidates for cropland expansion (both for food and biofuel not only depends on climate itself, but also on the social and
production). For example, in 2009, the World Bank identi- economic aspects of the society. For example, in pastoral
fied 600 million hectares of African savannas and woodlands societies, changes in rainfall amount and arrival time will
as the primary expansion opportunity to increase food pro- change vegetation productivity. However, to translate pro-
duction in Africa (World Bank, 2009). However, the conductivity consequences into livelihood and development im-
version to agriculture of these drylands would not occur at pacts requires additional levels of cross-disciplinary synthe-
no cost if we account for the environmental services they sis to incorporate geographical, social, economic, and tech-
currently provide, including rangeland, firewood production, nological dimensions of the linked human-ecohydrology sys-
carbon sequestration, maintenance of biodiversity, and pro- tem. In agricultural systems, we can also see the amplifica-
vision of habitat for wildlife. Moreover, the conversion of a tion of meteorological impact by anthropogenic activities.
grassland-dominated system to cropland has the potential to For example, recent work (e.g., Mwale, 2003; Falkenmark
reduce runoff dramatically (Twine et al., 2004) with impor- and Rockström, 2008) has begun to show that in many cases
tant impact on stream and fluvial habitats. One of the chal- agricultural drought can be quite substantial (i.e., complete
lenges in dryland ecohydrology is the disconnection of re- crop failure), even when meteorological drought (i.e., rain-
search focusing on upland processes and studies on stream fall deficit) is mild. Therefore, the frequency and severity of
biology. When some of the methods developed in humid re- a “drought year” depends heavily on both social and agri-
gions are applied to drylands, some distinctive ecohydrolog- cultural factors, which are themselves strongly coupled to
ical features of dryland streams need to be accounted for. For spatial expressions of hydrological dynamics, land cover pat-
instance, biotic indices (e.g., invertebrate taxa richness) can terns, and local coping behaviors. Although much progress
be used as indicators of stream health and land use impacts has been made in understanding changes in food security un-
(Lenat and Crawford, 1994) and to characterize terrestrial- der the threat of climate change (Hanjra and Qureshi, 2010),
aquatic interactions in drylands, but characteristics that are it is still unclear how an intensification of climate fluctuations

might affect food production and what policies could mediate the area available for livestock production. Rangeland reha-
those impacts. bilitation research has shown that in many cases physical ma-
It has been noted that, despite water scarcity some soci- nipulations such as microcatchments can reinstate more pro-
eties are meeting their food demand through the importa- ductive water-soil-plant relations. But additional, more holis-
tion of food commodities. International trade of food prod- tic assessments are needed to determine: (a) the extent to
ucts has been associated with a virtual transfer of the wa- which livelihood benefits from land rehabilitation can miti-
ter required for their production (Allan, 1998). Virtual wa- gate other stressors due to demographic and land use pres-
ter trade is, however, only a short term remedy: it does not sures, and (b) the optimal location of rehabilitation efforts in
correct the imbalance existing between the growing global heterogeneous landscapes to generate the greatest impacts on
population and the limited available water resources; it does productivity and livelihoods.
not promote equality in the access to freshwater (Seekell et Many smallholder dryland cropping systems in Africa
al., 2011); it reduces societal resilience (D’Odorico et al., have also undergone suites of social and ecohydrological
2010b), and makes some societies (e.g., China) increasingly changes. Demographic pressures have led to increased farm-
dependent on water resources that they do not control (Carr ing intensity, reduced fallow periods, and driven cropping
et al., 2012). into increasingly marginal areas. Crop genetics, fertilizers,
and pest management have spurred the Green Revolution
2.2 Dryland development challenges in agricultural intensification in Asia and Latin America,
but not in rural Africa. Lack of water availability and irri-
By taking a broader view of drylands not just as ecosystems, gation infrastructure are key barriers to such development
but as coupled human-environment systems, we can see the (Rockström et al., 2007). While major aid organizations are
pivotal importance of ecohydrology in the pursuit of human currently redoubling their efforts to create more efficient,
development. In developing countries, the livelihoods and drought resistant crops for Africa, knowledge of dryland eco-
well-being of rural dryland populations tend to be tightly and hydrology has inspired other approaches: Conservation Agri-
directly linked to ecological processes, as societies in these culture and the Green Water approach (FAO, 2006b; Falken-
regions typically engage in household-scale, low-technology mark and Rockström, 2008). With the mantra, “more crop
livestock and/or crop production (Reynolds et al., 2007). Pas- per drop,” these approaches seek to maximize the fraction
toral systems use natural dryland ecosystems extensively for of precipitation (or irrigation) that is routed through produc-
livestock production, with mobility, flexibility, and common tive plant growth (transpiration), by reducing losses to runoff,
pool resource management institutions to track and access evaporation, and deep drainage. With technologically simple
shifting resource availability (Robinson et al., 2011). Dry- tactics like microcatchments, mulching, and strategic timing
land smallholder agriculture is typically rain-fed, or may uti- of watering, crop yields per water input can increase several-
lize localized sources or on-site catchment for limited ir- fold (FAO, 2006b; Falkenmark and Rockström, 2008). At
rigation, making crop yields highly dependent on seasonal present, we lack coupled evaluations of plant-level (crop ge-
rainfall and farming practices that affect the partitioning of netics) and farm-level (conservation agriculture) approaches,
precipitation in the water balance equation (Falkenmark and which assess the climatic, ecological, and social conditions
Rockström, 2008; Notenbaert et al., 2009). under which these approaches offer higher or more sustain-
Today, both systems, and hybrids thereof, are struggling able productivity gains.
to support human livelihoods and maintain resilient ecolog-
ical processes in the face of growing populations, land use 2.3 Desertification and human vs. climate induced
pressures, and climate change. African drylands, which cover desertification
40 % of the continent’s land area, epitomize these challenges
for poverty reduction, economic development and environ- Many drylands around the world are affected by rapid
mental sustainability. Poverty itself limits choices for cop- change in vegetation cover and composition, hydrologic
ing strategies, such as technological investments or adoption conditions, and soil properties, which result in an overall
of industrial or other livelihoods (Thornton et al., 2006). A loss of ecosystem services and poses serious threats to sus-
human-ecohydrology lens can be applied to help understand tainable livelihoods. The process underlying these changes
how ecohydrologic conditions govern rural productivity, and is often termed “desertification” (D’Odorico et al., 2012).
can point to appropriate, creative approaches to forge more The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
beneficial feedbacks between landscapes and livelihoods. (UNCCD) (1994) defines desertification as land degradation
In pastoral systems, land degradation is part of a “dimin- in arid, semi-arid or sub-humid areas resulting from vari-
ishing resource syndrome”, in which increased livestock den- ous factors that include climate variations and human ac-
sities and limited mobility feed back to degrade the capacity tivities. About 10 % to 20 % of global drylands suffer from
of landscapes to capture and convert incoming rainfall into desertification and are prone to a decline in land productiv-
primary production, while competing land uses and conver- ity (Reynolds et al., 2007; D’Odorico et al., 2012). A num-
sion of higher productivity rangelands to agriculture reduce ber of processes can contribute to this decline, including soil

erosion (Li et al., 2007; Ravi et al., 2009), salinization, loss 2.4.1 The effects at plot scale
of soil fertility or depletion of seed banks. These factors
have important impacts on vegetation density and species A number of knowledge gaps relate to the effect of woody
composition. Desertification is commonly associated with encroachment on soil hydrologic conditions in semi-arid sys-
changes that persist for several decades and are presumably tems, which hinder the prediction of climate change effects
irreversible, at least within the time scales of a few human on soil-vegetation interactions. Below we identify the main
generations. knowledge gaps that relate to shrub encroachment, with an
As recognized by the UNCCD (1994), dryland desertifica- emphasis on eastern Australia and the western United States:
tion may be broadly associated with two underlying drivers,
namely changes in climate or human activities. These drivers 1. Enhanced levels of infiltration surrounding the canopy
may cause an ecosystem shift to a “desertified” state, while are a defining feature of arid zone shrub communities
positive feedbacks stabilize the system in this new state (e.g., Bhark and Small, 2003). Soil porosity is greater
(D’Odorico et al., 2012). To effectively combat degradation, and macropores are present adjacent to the roots and
we need to quantitatively assess the extent to which a region’s stem of woody plants, which also have well-developed
degradation is caused by climate variations or human activi- tap roots allowing the plants to access water from
ties. Recent methods utilizing remote sensing and modeling greater depths (Archer et al., 2002). While the extent
techniques to distinguish between human versus climate in- of infiltration is known to decline with increasing dis-
duced desertification are presented in detail in the “technical tance from the canopy, the exact nature of this de-
advances” section. cline is largely unknown for most woody species, and
has been studied in only a few arid zone shrubs (e.g.,
2.4 Ecohydrological consequences of shrub Atriplex spp., Dunkerley, 2000). Climate change predic-
encroachment tions show that the total precipitation amount will gen-
erally decrease in drylands (Solomon et al., 2007) with
Woody plant encroachment is the increase in the density and a concurrent increase in storm amounts (Ohmura and
cover of woody plants into open grasslands and woodlands, Wild, 2002). The intensified storms have been shown to
and is a global phenomenon (Archer et al., 1995; Eldridge increase soil water holding by deeper infiltration. This
et al., 2011). Encroachment is associated with a number of soil water is less susceptible to evaporation, thus the
ecosystem changes ranging from a change in the spatial dis- increased storm intensity may increase the water avail-
tribution of soil nutrients, altered habitat value for wildlife, ability for shrub/tree dominated microsites (Raz-Yaseef
and changes in the ability of the soil to redistribute water et al., 2012), but this depends on soil texture and rainfall
vertically and horizontally (Schlesinger et al., 1990; Archer intensity and needs further investigation for other areas.
et al., 2001; Bhark and Small, 2003; Zarovalli et al., 2007).
Changes in shrubland communities that alter the balance be- 2. The relative interception value of woody plants is poorly
tween precipitation, run-off, interception and infiltration are known (e.g., Savenije, 2004; Gerrits et al., 2007). For
likely to have marked effects on the structure and function example, we are aware of only a few studies of inter-
of shrubland ecosystems. The likely long-term effect is to ception of shrubs (e.g., Wood and Wood, 1986) and
reinforce the persistence of shrublands at the expense of there are few data on interception and stemflow for
grasslands (Reynolds et al., 2007). woody plants in arid and semi-arid eastern Australia.
Although water is a substantial driver of ecosystem pro- Limited data suggest that stemflow and interception for
cesses in semi-arid shrublands, relatively little is known box eucalypt communities are low (< 3 % of total rain-
about run-off and infiltration processes and the hydrological fall) (Johns, 1981; Tunstall and Connor, 1981), sug-
responses to encroachment. The dichotomy between shrub gesting that the majority of precipitation passes directly
canopy and interspace is a major determinant of ecosystem through the canopies. Thus, while this suggests that sur-
productivity and diversity. The heterogeneous nature of the face hydrological conditions are more influenced by soil
vegetation in drylands is thought to be controlled by pro- characteristics than plant architecture, there are limited
cesses of upslope water erosion and sedimentation, and com- studies to confirm this.
plex interactions among individual plants and the surround- 3. The degree to which woody and encroached communi-
ing soil matrix (Puigdefébregas and Sanchez, 1996; Bochet ties increase water erosion (either through physical ef-
et al., 1999; Reid et al., 1999; Wang et al., 2007; Ravi et fects or by reducing infiltration) is poorly understood
al., 2008). Both the movement and storage of water within (Eldridge et al., 2003). Hydrological models have been
shrublands is highly variable (e.g., Breshears et al., 2009). used to study how the amount of rainfall reaching the
These issues make it extremely difficult to model or predict ground, and hence the risk of erosion, varies accord-
likely hydrological responses to changes in management or ing to changing cover of woody plant canopies (Wu et
climate. al., 2001). As woody vegetation tends to intercept more
rainfall than understory vegetation (Thurow, 1991; Wu

et al., 2001), it could be argued that woody vegetation eterize runoff and erosion models for wooded commu-
reduces the risk of erosion to a greater degree. However, nities. More importantly, there is limited understanding
the situation is far more complex. As raindrops falling in terms of the runoff coefficient change for the same
from taller (> 2 m tall) canopies tend to be more erosive woody encroachment areas but under different precipi-
(i.e., with higher kinetic energy) than those falling from tation regimes.
shorter heights (Moss and Green, 1978), canopy height
7. There is a pressing need to separate out the direct
is likely to be an important driver of erosion risk. There
effects of woody plants on sub-surface flow, through
is an urgent need to test empirically some of the rela-
enhancement of macro-porosity, from the indirect ef-
tionships between canopy cover and height for different
fect of woody plants via their mediation of soil sur-
vegetation communities.
face condition. Increased shading under woody plants
4. The relationship between woody plants and understory is known to alter the richness and cover of understory
herbaceous cover is complex, and likely mediated by plants (Smit et al., 2007). Sub-canopy microsites are
grazing intensity (Barger et al., 2011). While overgraz- also highly preferred by biocrusts; complex communi-
ing is likely to lead to reductions in ground cover, this ties of mosses, lichens and cyanobacteria (Eldridge et
may be compensated for by increases in the cover of al., 2010). Biocrusts are known to have substantial ef-
other components such as litter. The interception capac- fects on hydrology in the near-surface layers (Eldridge
ity of grasses is biomass- and cover-dependent (Crouse et al., 2010), but the extent to which this is moderated by
et al., 1966), ranging from 0.3 to 2.5 mm of water (Bran- shrubs, or by the herbivores that tend to graze under the
son et al., 1972). However, litter also has the capacity canopy, is largely unknown. New models of water flow
to intercept rainfall, depending on the type and depth through soils, using different supply potentials, are cur-
(Branson et al., 1972). Litter cover, origin and degree rently being evaluated using systems-based approaches
of incorporation are known to be correlated with the (e.g., Eldridge et al., 2010).
capacity of the soil to resist erosion and infiltrate wa-
2.4.2 The effects on regional hydrological processes
ter (Tongway, 1995). However, the relationships among
litter depth, type and interception are not known. Shrub encroachment may also have dramatic effects on re-
5. Many studies have shown higher nutrient levels (e.g., gional hydrological processes. Encroachment can lead to
Charley and West, 1975; Schlesinger et al., 1996; Ravi land-to-atmosphere feedbacks with possible impacts on rain-
et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2009b) and higher soil car- fall and temperature regimes. Small and Kurc (2003) found
bon concentrations (e.g., Wang et al., 2009c) under only limited potential feedbacks to precipitation in Creosote
the shrub/tree areas compared with open areas. In fact, bush (Larrea tridentata) shrublands in North America. How-
woody plant encroachments affect both soil moisture ever, it has been argued that reduced woody cover may re-
and soil biogeochemical processes through physical duce rainfall by altering surface roughness, ET and cloud
(e.g., shading effect to decrease evaporation) and bi- formation (McAlpine et al., 2009). Much of this is largely
otic factors (e.g., water uptake through deep rooting); unknown, however, and the exact magnitude of any regional
furthermore, soil moisture itself strongly control soil hydrological changes resulting from encroachment can only
biogeochemical cycles in water-limited systems (e.g., be speculated upon. Shrub encroachment can affect the land
Austin et al., 2004; Wang et al., 2009a). How to separate surface albedo, emissivity, and roughness with important im-
the woody plant and soil moisture effects on soil bio- pacts on the near surface climate (Beltran-Przekurat et al.,
geochemical cycles is important to better understand the 2008). Even though in some cases changes in albedo are
dynamic differences between under canopy and open negligible, the increase in soil energy storage at encroached
canopy areas, and the tree-grass interactions. This in- area can modify the microclimate with a positive feedback on
formation is also important to upscale the plot-scale ob- vegetation (D’Odorico et al., 2010c; He et al., 2010). Recent
servations to larger scales. regional climate modeling activities that seek to change the
boundary conditions of the surface state may provide some
6. Runoff coefficients are thought to be much less in insight into the influence and strength of land-atmosphere
woody communities than in the herbaceous communi- couplings as a response to changing surface conditions.
ties that they replace. For example, run-off coefficients These effects are likely to change markedly with increases
reported by Harrington et al. (1981) for the semiarid in global temperatures, increases in the severity of high inten-
Australian woodlands were seven-times lower for thick- sity rainfall events, and greater spatial variability in ground-
ets of trees and shrubs than for the inter-thickets, sim- cover and therefore the capacity of the soil to resist erosion.
ilar to results from the piñon-juniper woodlands in the The replacement of grassland by shrubland exposes more of
western United States (Reid et al., 1999). Data on the the surface to the action of raindrop impact resulting in accel-
differences in runoff coefficients across soil types and erated erosion and potential sedimentation (Abrahams et al.,
vegetation communities are needed in order to param- 1994). These regional studies reinforce the notion that more

catchment-specific data are needed for both the ecological and time series analysis, corresponding to the critical issue
(e.g., tree rooting depth, canopy architecture and structure, (2.3); the second and third parts focus on using remote sens-
depth of water intake) and hydrological (soil texture and hy- ing and stable isotope based techniques to better characterize
draulic conductivity, soil moisture availability, hydrological the water budget at various scales, which apply to all the crit-
connectivity) components of these systems, in order to im- ical issues. Remote sensing has the advantage in temporal
prove our catchment wide modeling of the likely ecohydro- and spatial duration and stable isotopes have the advantage
logical effects of vegetation change. in detecting mechanisms.
The positive effects of woody plants on soils and under-
story vegetation needs to be balanced with their negative ef- 3.1 Detecting human vs. climate induced desertification
fects of competing directly for water and intercepting rain-
fall. Whilst the relationship between woody plants, under- Differentiating human vs. climate induced desertification is
story plants and soil water is poorly understood, and the de- a challenging task. Techniques to quantify the relative influ-
gree to which one is offset by the other often depends on the ence of each cause have been developed to identify regions
scale at which these effects are measured. Given the close where land management options are likely to be most effec-
links between woody vegetation and water flow in these pat- tive in stopping and remediating this degradation. One of the
terned landscapes, removal of woody vegetation is likely to earliest attempts to explicitly do this can be found in Evans
have drastic impacts for the capture and utilization of water at and Geerken (2004). In their methodology the first step was
a landscape scale, but may increase short-term productivity to establish a relationship between inter-annual variations in
at a local scale. The situation is analogous to other patterned vegetation and precipitation. The satellite based Normalized
landscapes worldwide where removal of vegetation results Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used as a proxy for
in a reduced efficiency of water and nutrient capture in the vegetation. Evans and Geerken (2004) provide a generic way
landscape and therefore reduced overall function and pro- of identifying the best linear correlation between the precip-
ductivity (Tongway et al., 2001). The impact of woody plant itation, accumulated over some period, and the annual maxi-
encroachment on runoff and streamflow conditions has been mum NDVI. This extends the work of many others who have
typically associated with a reduction in base flow (Chang, also investigated the relationship between the NDVI and cli-
2002) though some recent studies are showing that the oppo- matic variables (Hielkema et al., 1986; Yang et al., 1997;
site might also happen (Wilcox and Huang, 2010). du Plessis, 1999; Schmidt and Karnieli, 2000; Wang et al.,
2001). By removing this identified climate contribution from
the NDVI time series the influence of the climate variability
3 Technical advances addressing dryland issues is removed, and any remaining trend in these residuals is then
ascribed to human activities (Fig. 2). This method is hereafter
As already noted, the variability and distribution of water referred to as RESTREND. Using this methodology Evans
availability in the landscape is of paramount importance for and Geerken (2004) identified the regions undergoing sig-
drylands. There are a number of exciting developments in nificant human caused degradation in the Syrian drylands,
monitoring tools useful for ecohydrological research over which account for a large portion of the total degraded areas.
the last decade. For example, field deployable laser based The RESTREND method has subsequently been used in
spectroscopy approaches that determine the ratios of hy- many studies to identify the contribution of climate vari-
drogen and oxygen isotopes (Lee et al., 2005; Wang et al., ability and human activities to land degradation (Herrmann
2009d, 2012b), cosmic-ray (Zreda et al., 2008) and electro- et al., 2005; Wessels et al., 2007; Propastin and Kappas,
magnetic imaging (i.e., EMI) based plot to watershed scale 2008; Paudel and Andersen, 2010; Brinkmann et al., 2011).
in-situ soil moisture monitoring, development of distributed- Some studies have further shown the connection between
temperature sensing (DTS), and remote sensing based esti- the identified degraded areas and a particular human activ-
mates of key hydrological variables such as soil moisture, ET ity such as over-grazing (Geerken and Ilaiwi, 2004; Paudel
and water level (Alsdorf et al., 2000) are revolutionizing the and Andersen, 2010).
scales and precision of information sources to inform eco- The RESTREND method has proven to be robust and ef-
hydrological measurement and investigation. The modeling fective in many studies. The RESTREND method is how-
and conceptual advances in soil moisture (Rodriguez-Iturbe ever, relatively simple and it contains several limitations. It
et al., 1999; Guswa et al., 2002), scale and scaling (Blöschl assumes there is a linear relationship between vegetation and
and Sivapalan, 1995; Rodriguez-Iturbe et al., 1995; Wilcox precipitation; that the identified relationship is not overly in-
et al., 2003) also enhance our understanding of dryland eco- fluenced by the presence of degradation; and that the vegeta-
hydrolocial processes. It is impractical to exhaust all the ad- tion measure (e.g., NDVI) can represent all forms of degrada-
vances and here we select remote sensing and stable isotopes tion of interest. Each of these limitations has been addressed
as examples and discuss three areas in details. First we dis- in various studies. The assumption of a linear relationship
cuss recent methodology advances to differentiate human vs. between vegetation (NDVI) and precipitation appears ro-
climate induced desertification using remote sensing product bust within dryland systems, however the assumption breaks

1452
In drylands degradation may occur without any discernible

change in the vegetation measure, usually NDVI. Proba-
bly the most important of these changes is caused by over-
grazing. The livestock will preferentially graze on the most
palatable species which can result in the replacement of these
species by less palatable species. Such a change in vege-
tation composition may not produce any change in the ob-
served NDVI but may dramatically reduce the livestock car-
rying capacity of the land. It has been proposed that by uti-
lizing the phenological cycle as embodied in time series of
remotely sensed vegetation indices, such as NDVI, it is pos-
sible to differentiate vegetation species. Most conventional
1453 studies only use particular phenologically relevant variables
1454 such as green period, peaking time, or onset/end of green pe-
1455 Fig. 2. Flowchart of RESTREND method to differentiate human vs.
riod (e.g., Boyd et al., 2011). Others have used decision (re-
climate induced desertification. First, climate (precipitation, tem-
1456 Figure 2 gression) tree techniques based on a collection of the above
perature) and vegetation (NDVI) time series are used to find the cli-
1457
mate averaging window that produces the highest correlation. Using variables (Hansen et al., 2000; Bradley and Mustard, 2008).
1458 this window, the linear regression is calculated. Then, this regres- These approaches do not make full use of the information
sion equation is used to calculate the climate caused NDVI compo- available over the entire phenological cycle. One technique
nent. The difference between the observed NDVI and the climate used to extract information from the full time series is to treat
caused NDVI is the NDVI residual. The trend in this residual indi- the multi-temporal data set as if it is a multi-spectral data
cates the human caused changes in the vegetation. set and apply spectral-unmixing algorithms to it (Singh and
Glenn, 2009), another is to decompose the shape of the phe-
nological cycle using Fourier transforms and base the clas-
down in wetter environments. Wessels et al. (2007) applied sification on the Fourier components, which is the approach
a log transform to the precipitation data to account for the used in Geerken et al. (2005) and Evans and Geerken (2006).
lower responsiveness of vegetation to precipitation in high Geerken et al. (2005) presents the Fourier Filtered Cycle
precipitation areas. With this change they found that the RE- Similarity algorithm in which the user identifies optimum
STREND method was successful in identifying the degrad- weightings for Fourier harmonics calculated from a refer-
ing regions across a large climatic gradient in South Africa. ence vegetation cycle. These optimum parameters are ap-
Others
found similar non-linear
55 relationships between veg- plied to the entire area of interest and pixels of similar shape
etation and precipitation when applied outside the drylands to the reference cycle are deemed to be the same vegetation
(e.g., Paudel and Andersen, 2010). type. The measurement of similarity is based on a linear re-
The RESTREND method assumes that the relationship gression between the reference cycle and the target cycle.
seen in the observations between the vegetation (NDVI) and To overcome the high computational burden and subjective
precipitation contains the climate influence, while the resid- nature of this algorithm, Evans and Geerken (2006) intro-
uals of this relationship contain all other influences on the duced the Fourier component based shape similarity mea-
vegetation. However, if an area has been degraded during the sure. This similarity measure is based directly on the Fourier
observation record this will be evident as a smaller vegeta- Components and is designed mathematically such that it is
tion response to the same precipitation input, and the identi- invariant to modifications unrelated to the plants phenology,
fied vegetation-precipitation relationship will embody some that is, the similarity measure is invariant to vertical dis-
of this response. That is, the RESTREND method neces- placements caused by different backgrounds (soils), tempo-
sarily underestimates the degradation (or improvement) that ral shifts caused by changes in the onset of the wet season
has occurred. This limitation has been addressed by esti- or across strong climate gradients, and magnitude variations,
mating the “potential” vegetation given the climate condi- which can be caused by changes in the coverage or vigour
tions. This potential vegetation has been estimated in a num- of the vegetation. These techniques have been further devel-
ber of ways. Wessels et al. (2008) used the 90th percentile oped by Geerken (2009). They have been found to provide
of net primary production (NPP) for each biophysical land accurate vegetation type classifications down to the level of
unit to define the potential production of the land. Xu et differentiating shrub types. Geerken (2009) also introduced a
al. (2010) used NPP calculated using the Carnegie-Ames- change detection algorithm that differentiates between cover-
Stanford Approach (CASA) model to determine the poten- age changes and vegetation type changes making these shape
tial of an area, while Zhang et al. (2011) used this approach similarity based approaches very promising as a means to
with estimates from the Thornthwaite Memorial and Syn- detect early stages of degradation in drylands such as the re-
thetic models as well. placement of palatable shrubs by unpalatable ones.

To date, attempts to differentiate between human-induced moisture, with each representing a compromise between spa-
and climate caused degradation have focused on precipita- tial and temporal resolution. Microwave based soil moisture
tion as representing the required climate variations. How- retrieval is limited by the depth of measurement (on the or-
ever, in cold dryland regions where temperatures reach below der of just a few centimetres). As such, sensors only have
zero celcius, temperature changes may also play an impor- the capability to inform upon the near surface soil moisture,
tant role. Liu et al. (2012) apply the RESTREND method to although techniques to extrapolate through the soil column
the Mongolian Steppe and found that inter-annual changes in are used (Hoeben and Troch, 2000). Although routine daily
temperature had a significant impact on the vegetation and so global scale estimation of soil moisture is possible, making
must be included along with precipitation in order to account them ideal for large scale studies, a clear limitation of pas-
for the full climate effect. As global warming continues, it sive microwave sensing is the coarse resolution of retrievals
is likely that the long-term change in temperature will play (McCabe et al., 2005). While active radar systems provide a
a larger role in many environments and should not be ne- higher spatial resolution (up to a few kilometres), the repeat
glected. Liu et al. (2012) found that once the climatic effects time is generally on the order of a few days. Passive systems
had been removed, regions of degradation in the Mongolian on the other hand can provide sub-daily retrievals, but with
Steppe could largely be attributed to over-grazing due to the a coarser spatial coverage (approximately 25km). Efforts to
increase in Cashmere goat population. The challenge now is merge data sets from multiple systems and sensors have the
to determine what actions can be taken to stop, or even re- potential to offer improved insight for large scale ecohydro-
verse, the degradation without damaging one of Mongolia’s logical investigations (Liu et al., 2011a).
largest export markets and before the degradation becomes From an in-situ monitoring perspective, perhaps the most
irreversible. important recent advance in soil moisture estimation is the
development of the COSMOS monitoring system (Zreda et
3.2 Remote sensing of water budget components in al., 2008). Based on the release of both fast and slow neu-
drylands trons from interactions between water in the soil column and
a regular flux of cosmic rays from space, the COSMOS sys-
Remote sensing provides the capacity to bridge the point tem provides for the first time, a typical model resolution
scale focus of many ecohydrological investigations to the (100’s of meters) estimate of the soil wetness in a system.
larger spatial extents required for whole system assessment. In addition, the hydrogen in the top layer will have more
One of the key advantages of remote sensing platforms is the sensitivity to the neutron counts, thus COSMOS has the po-
availability of data to allow extrapolation not just in space, tential to discriminate soil moisture at the topsoil and soil
but also across the temporal domain, offering insight into pat- moisture in the subsoil, if combined with modeling to sepa-
tern change and development through time. Recent advances rate the various hydrogen pools in the average measurement.
in hydrological remote sensing (Lettenmaier and Famiglietti, The COSMOS installations represent a revolution in terms
2006) have seen research efforts that seek to address the out- of bridging the spatial divide that often exists between re-
standing problem of observation based hydrological closure mote sensing and in-situ measurement approaches. Efforts to
(Sheffield et al., 2009). Such efforts to quantify the fluxes and develop a distributed network of these systems globally will
stores of water within the terrestrial system have relevance to see an improved capacity to monitor ecosystem change and
better understanding the hydrological implications of climate development in ways not previously available.
change and also the coupling and feedback mechanisms that
directly impact upon ecohydrology studies. 3.2.2 Precipitation
Of considerable interest in large scale ecohydrological ap-
plications are hydrological related variables associated with Spatial and temporal maps of rainfall distribution provide key
the estimation of soil moisture, precipitation, vegetation and constraints on the health and development of ecohydrologi-
water stress, and the linked process of ET. cal systems. While there is a wide range of satellite based re-
trievals that can provide enhanced characterization of ecosys-
3.2.1 Soil moisture tem condition or state, a number of these space based plat-
forms provide multi-decadal sequences of important terres-
Soil moisture sensing from space has been employed for a trial variables. Remote measurement of precipitation has an
variety of applications in the hydrological sciences, most reg- extensive history, with numerous hydrological investigations
ularly in updating the state parameter for land surface mod- being informed by the two decades long Tropical Rainfall
eling applications (Pauwels et al., 2001; Pan et al., 2008). and Measurement Mission (TRMM) satellite system (Kum-
From an ecohydrological perspective, characterizing the an- merow et al., 2000) and other related sensors.
tecedent condition of a system along with the mean, range Using both microwave based passive and active radar sys-
and variability of soil moisture dynamics within it, are of tems, together with infrared based sensors on board geosta-
primary interest. Both active and passive sensor microwave tionary platforms, researchers have been able to provide im-
based systems are available for remote estimation of soil proved spatial and temporal detail on precipitation structure

1459 1463
1460
1464
1461 Figure 3
Fig. 3. Map of global evapotranspiration (in mm) distribution for the1465 Fig.
4. Map of aridity index for the year 2006, using Global Pre-
1462 year 2006. Data are from Global Land-surface Evaporation: Ams-1466 Figure
cipitation4 Climatology Centre (GPCC) descriptions of rainfall at
terdam Method (GLEAM).
1467 0.5 × 0.5 degree and the Global Land-surface Evaporation: Ams-
1468 terdam Method (GLEAM) for evapotranspiration. Note that evap-
otranspiration rather than potential evapotranspiration values were
1469
and pattern. Over the coming years, the next generation of used in calculating the aridity index for this map.
1470
satellite rainfall systems, referred to as the Global Precipi-
1471
tation Mission (GPM), will provide a much needed update
1472
to the space based rainfall monitoring capacity. With GPM, land surface heat fluxes that can be used not only for global
the spatial and temporal resolution of rainfall retrievals will1473
climate model evaluation, but also more process and sys-
eclipse previous incarnations, and offer the needed level of1474 tem scale modeling and interpretation activities. Most im-
detail to enable a range of hydrological and ecohydrological portantly, it will seek to be consistent with a suite of other
investigations. climate system product data sets, reducing the risk of intro-
duced bias as a response to independent forcing data sets.
3.2.3 Evapotranspiration These data have considerable utility in describing the long-
term variability and range of ecosystem behavior around
Together with precipitation, ET represents the major water the globe, allowing intercomparison of climate regions (arid,
57
flux exchanges occurring within the Earth system. Encom- semi-arid, humid) with reduced bias as a result of data con-
passing
water loss from open 56 water, bare soil and canopy sistency. Also, other GEWEX data streams such as radiation,
components (E) and plant water release through the pro- precipitation and ultimately soil moisture will allow further
cess of transpiration (T ), the two terms can routinely exceed ecosystem analysis to be undertaken in a consistent frame-
90 % of the water lost from dryland ecosystems. For this rea- work, reducing one of the large uncertainties in mass and
son, considerable effort has been directed at developing ap- energy flux assessments (McCabe et al., 2008), the inherent
proaches for its accurate estimation at a range of spatial and variability in forcing data and subsequent response on model
temporal scales (McCabe and Wood, 2006). Indeed, for dry- simulations.
land systems, a compromise between the spatial resolution of Figure 3 illustrates a recent example of a multi-satellite
measurements and the temporal frequency is often required, Global Land- surface Evapotranspiration (GLEAM) product,
given the rapid rate at which water is exchanged through the developed by the Vrije University of Amsterdam (Miralles et
system. al., 2011). The approach, along with a number of other global
Numerous techniques for flux estimation exist, with the ET data sets (see Jimenez et al., 2011 for further details), al-
recent review by Kalma et al. (2008) providing a good low for the calculation of simple ecosystem and catchment
overview of these different approaches. While many satel- indices, such as the aridity index (P /potential ET) or evapo-
lite based algorithms rely on the use of surface temperature rative fraction, providing a baseline characterization of eco-
and air temperature gradients to gauge heat flux potential, the hydrological response across spatial and temporal domains
surface temperature itself is a useful proxy for surface condi- (see Fig. 4 for an example of such an index). Such data sets
tion and stress: particularly if the diurnal temperature range provide a much needed source of information on global pat-
can be retrieved (Sobrino and El Kharraz, 1999; Stisen et al., terns of evaporative response, and will prove useful in estab-
2008). lishing change and trend detection in the hydrological cycle.
Recent efforts towards better understanding the global dis-
tribution of fluxes and variability in flux retrieval approaches 3.2.4 Vegetation and water stress
has been undertaken under the auspices of the Global Energy
and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Landflux project In addition to standard maps of land use and land cover which
(Jimenez, 2011; Mueller et al., 2011). Landflux is an effort provide insight into the (often slowly) changing nature of
to provide the community with a climatological record of the terrestrial surface (e.g., Domingues et al., 2007), there

are a wide range of vegetation based indices that present Stable isotopes of water provide a useful tool to separate
details on the state and condition of vegetation across the E and T , as E and T carry distinct isotopic signatures. His-
globe. The range of available data can also include informa- torically water isotopes have been widely used in hydrology
tion on plant phenology, density and distribution (McVicar to track the water movement and phase changes (Gat, 1996).
and Jupp, 1998; Badeck et al., 2004; White et al., 2009; The water stable isotopic compositions are traditionally mea-
Simard et al., 2011). Through integration with microwave, sured by the isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS), while
optical or infrared remote sensing data, the capacity to link the vapor phase measurements are usually based on cryo-
the sub-surface land condition with the state and health of genic water vapor collection coupled with the IRMS method.
the overlying vegetation can be realized. While often empir- Such methods are labor intensive and time consuming, as 18 O
ical in nature, relationships between vegetation stress and re- measurements require offline CO2 -H2 O equilibrium. The
mote sensing indices are commonly used in model and ob- typical vapor equilibrium takes about 24 h. Over the past
servation based studies – the most well recognized of these decade, a revolutionary change in water isotope measure-
being the NDVI. Recent efforts to produce a data set of ments has seen the appearance of spectroscopy based isotope
vegetation biomass from microwave based systems has a instruments capable of making continuous measurements of
range of useful implication for understanding the shifting water vapor isotopic compositions. This new type of instru-
responses of ecohydrological systems. Unlike optical or in- ments does not usually require pretreatment and have preci-
frared sensors, microwave remote sensing measures the total sions similar to traditional cryogenic based mass spectrome-
water content of the vegetation and soil continuum. Differ- try methods (Lee et al., 2005; Wen et al., 2008; Wang et al.,
entiating the strength of signal between these two land sur- 2009d; Griffis et al., 2010). Recent research has indicated
face components provides the potential to describe the total that plant derived volatile compound induced spectral con-
above ground biomass. More importantly, using temporal se- tamination in leaf and stem water measurements could affect
quences of these satellite systems provides a capacity to map the accuracy of water stable isotopic compositions signifi-
large-scale changes of biomass response in ways that tradi- cantly (West et al., 2010; Zhao et al., 2011), limiting the
tional indices such as NDVI are incapable of capturing (Jones application of spectroscopy-based method to plant sample
et al., 2011; Liu et al., 2011b). measurements. There are studies which developed post cor-
A number of remote sensing derived drought indices that rection method for modest spectral contamination of plant
are generally independent of vegetation state and rely more tissues (Schultz et al., 2011), but this remains a topic requir-
on meteorological or hydrological indicators, have also been ing further developments. Nevertheless, the continuous mea-
produced (Sheffield and Wood, 2008). These existing and surement of water vapor isotope compositions allows for the
emerging data sets provide a near real-time capacity to un- direct quantification of the water vapor and will expand the
derstand the dynamic vegetation response to rapidly chang- capabilities of using stable isotopes for echohydrological re-
ing terrestrial conditions. Whether as a consequence of hy- search.
drological or other larger scale forcing to the system, such To assess ET partitioning using stable isotopes, three iso-
data – in combination with other remote sensing based re- topic end members need to be quantified: the isotopic compo-
trievals – also allow a capacity to examine system recovery sition of ET (δET ), T (δT ) and E (δE ). Recent efforts have fo-
or ecosystem shift as a response to external drivers across cused on developing, refining and assessing estimation meth-
local, regional and global scales. ods of all three end members. δET is typically measured us-
ing the Keeling plot approach coupled with traditional cryo-
3.3 Evapotranspiration partition genic methods (e.g., Yepez et al., 2005). With the develop-
ment of the new laser technique, Wang et al. (2012c) ex-
As noted above, ET is a major term in the water budget and tended this technique to direct chamber measurements cou-
accounts for up to 95 % of water input (e.g., precipitation) pled with laser instruments. Good et al. (2012) quantified
in drylands (Huxman et al., 2005). At the same time, ET has and compared the uncertainties using different δET estima-
two distinct components (E and T ), which are controlled by tion methods at tower scale and showed that the eddy covari-
different mechanisms. Partitioning ET is important not only ance method has the largest uncertainties, while the Keeling
for better understanding the water budget but also in predict- plot and flux gradient methods have smaller and similar un-
ing the biogeochemical fluxes driven by hydrological varia- certainties.
tions (e.g., Wang et al., 2010b; Raz-Yaseef et al., 2012). To δE is typically calculated by the Craig-Gordon model
efficiently use the limited water resources in drylands, we (Craig and Gordon, 1965), which describes δE as a function
need to maximize the productive water loss (T ) and mini- of humidity, kinetic and equilibrium isotope fractionation,
mize the unproductive water loss (E) (Wang and D’Odorico, the isotopic composition of water of the evaporation surface,
2008). Separating E and T , however, has always been a dif- and atmospheric vapor. Soderberg et al. (2012) showed that
ficult task, especially from the observational point of view at the traditional Craig-Gordon model could be improved by
larger scales (see modeling exercise in Liu, 2009). adding water potential terms for dry soils.

475 L. Wang et al.: Dryland ecohydrology 2597
476
spatial scales, which will significantly enhance water budget
estimation in drylands.
4 Summary and concluding remarks
In this synthesis, based on hydrological principles and pub-

lished literature, we highlight current critical issues in dry-
lands ecohydrology ranging from societal aspects such as
rapid population growth and the resulting food and water
security implications, development issues, to natural aspects
477 such as ecohydrological consequences of bush encroachment
478
479 Fig. 5. An example of using laser-based stable isotope monitoring and differentiation of human versus climate induced deserti-
480 techniques to partition evapotranspiration. The left panel showed fication. We identify a number of research priorities to better
481 Figure 5
the experimental setup inside Biosphere 2 as well as the mass bal- address knowledge gaps. It should be noted that while some
ance equation to calculate the evapotranspiration partition, and the of the issues identified are not necessarily unique to drylands
right panel showed the increased transpiration/evapotranspiration themselves (e.g., food and water security), the level of sever-
ratio as vegetation cover increases, which was modified from Wang ity and urgency is certainly higher in drylands and deserves
et al. (2010b). focused attention.
To improve current understanding and inform upon the
needed research efforts to address these critical issues, we
Typically, δT is assessed indirectly using stem water mea-
identify some recent technical advances in terms of moni-
surements or leaf water measurements with leaf enrichment
toring dryland water dynamics, water budget and vegetation
corrections. The use of stem water measurements is based
water use, with a focus on the use of stable isotopes and
on the assumption that leaves operate under isotopic steady
remote sensing. Stable isotopes have proven to be a pow-
state, so that δT is equal to the isotopic composition of
erful tool in tracing hydrological processes and vegetation
plant source water. The assumption that leaves are in iso-
water sources. Recent developments in spectroscopy have
topic steady state is generally valid during midday because
revolutionized the temporal and spatial resolution of isotopic
the magnitude of T relative to the volume of leaf water is
monitoring, providing foundations to use isotope-based tech-
large and there is a rapid turnover of water in transpiring
niques to partition ET and characterize large-scale vegetation
leaves. However, non-steady state isotopic enrichment is also
water use. Similarly, rapid developments in remote sensing
common in many natural systems, especially during the early
based hydrological monitoring provide unprecedented tem-
morning and late afternoon (e.g., Lai et al., 2005), when T
poral and spatial coverage in estimates of soil moisture, ET,
fluxes are lower. Taking advantage of the new laser tech-
58 water level and other important ecohydrological aspects of
nique, Wang et al. (2010b) reported the first direct measure-
the system. For example, both active and passive microwave
ments of δT using a customized leaf chamber and off-axis
based systems are available for remote estimation of soil
integrated cavity output spectroscopy water vapor isotope an-
moisture, with each representing a compromise between spa-
alyzer with pure nitrogen as purging gas. This method, how-
tial and temporal resolution. Combing microwave-based pas-
ever, has two limitations: (1) the limited availability of ultra-
sive and active systems with infrared-based sensors allows
purity nitrogen gas makes this method unsuitable for many
for the spatial and temporal resolution of precipitation struc-
field applications; (2) the water-free and CO2 -free inline en-
ture and pattern to be significantly improved. In addition,
vironment affects stomata openings since humidity and CO2
the capacity to monitor vegetation structure and vegetation
have opposite effects on stomata openings, which may al-
health provides additional benefits for ecohydrological mon-
ter instantaneous δT values. Building on this configuration,
itoring using remote sensing.
Wang et al. (2012b) developed a new framework to remove
Due to inherent length limitations, there are a number of
the need for dry air by employing a mass balance approach
related technical advances in in-situ measurements, such as
for both isotopes and water vapor inside the leaf chamber.
field portable 3D LIDAR systems for plant canopy analysis,
This direct and continuous δT quantification method has been
distributed temperature sensors (DTS) for soil heat flux and
shown to effectively capture the fast δT responses to radiation
connected water measurements, and electromagnetic imag-
variations (Wang et al., 2012b).
ing (EMI) and cosmic ray soil moisture observing systems
Figure 5 presents an example of using laser-based iso-
(COSMOS) for soil moisture that were not covered in detail.
tope monitoring technique to partition ET inside Biosphere 2
Further information of such advances can be found in a num-
and assess the T /ET ratio changes with increasing vegetation
ber of synthesis papers devoted to some of these techniques
cover (Wang et al., 2010b). With these new developments on
(e.g., Robinson et al., 2008; Zreda et al., 2012).
the estimation of isotope end members, stable water isotopes
provide a promising tool for partitioning ET across a range of

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Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

, 16, 2585–2603, 2012

Dryland ecohydrology and climate change: critical issues and

Indiana 46202, USA

GA, 30602, USA

Correspondence to: L. Wang (w.lixin@gmail.com)

Abstract. Drylands cover about 40 % of the terrestrial land 1 Introduction

Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012 www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/

hand, involves disaggregating and singling out (Blöschl and '&!"

pend on the characteristic of the interested parameters. Scale '!!" <#-&'

and scaling issues have been discussed comprehensively in %!"

and it is still an active area for ecohydrological research #!" E6&2$-'

Global water resources are inherently related to and affected

www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/ Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012 www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/

www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/ Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012 www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/

www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/ Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012 www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/

In drylands degradation may occur without any discernible

www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/ Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012 www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/

www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/ Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012 www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/

4 Summary and concluding remarks

In this synthesis, based on hydrological principles and pub-

www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/ Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012 www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/

www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/ Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012 www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/

www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/ Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012 www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/

www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/2585/2012/ Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2585–2603, 2012

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