HR: 13:45h
AN: H32E-01 INVITED     [PDF]
TI: Vegetation, Hydrology and Biogeochemical Cycling: An Integrated View of Controls, Linkages and Feedbacks
AU: * Reynolds, J F
EM: james.f.reynolds@duke.edu
AF: Duke University, Department of Biology & Division of Environmental Science and Policy, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Science, Phytotron Bldg., Box 90340, Durham, NC 27708-0340 United States
AB: Many current environmental challenges (e.g., diminished water quality and supply, desertified ecosystems, climate change impacts) require an interdisciplinary understanding of the coupled behavior of vegetation, hydrology, and biogeochemical cycling. Perhaps nowhere is such interdisciplinary insight more important than in the water-limited arid and semi-arid regions of the Earth. Vegetation plays a key role in hydrological processes in these systems, affecting the evaporation, transpiration, runoff, and recharge components of the water balance. Similarly, hydrological processes are a major determinant of many ecosystem processes, including seed germination, primary productivity, the distribution of vegetation, and biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen, and other nutrients. Using examples from the Mojave, Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts of North America, this lecture will examine the interrelated roles of vegetation, hydrological cycles and biogeochemical cycles, ranging from patch to watershed scales. Key components, nonlinearities and linkages will be identified, including critical gaps in our understanding and new approaches and methods needed to advance our current ability to characterize and model complex environmental systems. These issues will be addressed in the context of both theoretical and field-based research.
DE: 1650 Solar variability
DE: 1800 HYDROLOGY
DE: 1812 Drought
DE: 1818 Evapotranspiration
DE: 1866 Soil moisture
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting