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Presentation by Briana K. Whitehead (Montana State University) on CUAHSI's Near Surface Geophysics for Hydrology Workshop in Laramie, WY in September 2018.

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Every two years, CUAHSI hosts a symposium to bring together the diverse fields of water science to discuss developments in the hydrology sector of the Earth Sciences. Under leadership from the CUAHSI Board of Directors, researchers present their latest findings and developments, propose community workshops, and interact with colleagues from different disciplinary fields from all over the country.

CUAHSI’s Biennial Colloquium offers a unique opportunity and a casual environment for participants to discuss ideas and network with colleagues, as well as build new relationships. Students are especially encouraged to attend and present posters.

CUAHSI's Sixth Biennial Colloquium was held on July 29 - August 1, 2018 at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, WV.

Here you'll find presentations on "Hydrologic Connections: Climate, Food, Energy, Environment, and Society."

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Food-Water Systems
Chair: Megan Konar (University of Illinois)
This session will explore interactions and interconnections between food and water systems. Cutting edge research will focus on identifying resiliencies and vulnerabilities in the water-food nexus and opportunities to promote sustainable water use while enhancing food security.

"Holistic Pathways for Achieving Food Security and Water Sustainability"
Speaker: Kyle Davis (Columbia University)
Co-Authors: Paolo D’Odorico (University of California Berkeley), Ashwini Chhatre (Indian School of Business, Hyderabad), Davide Danilo Chiarelli (Politecnico di Milano), Narasimha Rao (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis), Brian Richter (Sustainable Waters), Lorenzo Rosa (University of California Berkeley), Maria Cristina Rulli (Politecnico di Milano), Antonio Seveso (Politecnico di Milano), Deepti Singh (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and Washington State University), Ruth DeFries (Columbia University)

Global food supply has nearly tripled over the past half century, supporting massive population growth, richer diets, and the expansion of alternative crop-based energy sources. At the same time, one in nine people still cope with chronic undernourishment, and the environmental burden of agriculture has grown substantially. There is wide agreement that humanity’s rate of resource use exceeds what can be sustainably generated and absorbed by Earth’s systems. It is also clear that a continuation of current agricultural practices will enhance the vulnerability of the global food system to economic and environmental shocks. A radical transformation of the global food system is therefore required in order to increase nutritious food production while minimizing its impacts on water resources and the environment and accommodating uncertainties related to demand and climate change.

Aligning these goals demands a holistic perspective that combines diverse lines of scientific evidence with direct stakeholder engagement. I will present some of my recent research that attempts to address this challenge by quantifying historical impacts and tradeoffs of food systems, assessing solutions that can achieve co-benefits for food security, livelihoods, and water resources, and identifying potential suitable policy pathways for their implementation. Combining global assessments and case studies at policyrelevant scales, I will introduce a multidimensional framework that values multiple types of knowledge and that emphasizes interactions with local experts. This approach seeks to integrate food security, economic, social, and environmental considerations in order to examine the outcomes of existing agricultural policies as well as expand the suite of feasible solutions. In doing so, this work offers insights for developing effective food security strategies that are receptive and responsive to the priorities of local governments and communities and that enhance the sustainability and adaptability of food and water systems.

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Dynamic Connectivity in the Landscape
Chair: Adam Ward (Indiana University)
Connectivity between different locations on the landscape is defined by the movement of water, solutes, energy, and organisms. The magnitude and persistence of connections is critical to prediction of ecological functions, many of which are mediated by hydrological stores and fluxes. In this session we consider connectivity as a spatially and temporally variable process in catchments and river systems.

"Ecohydrological connectivity between landscapes and riverscapes"
Speaker: Doerthe Tetzlaff (University of Aberdeen)

It is increasingly recognised that the processes and connections in our landscapes are influencing the functioning of aquatic ecosystems. Fundamental scientific understanding of the functioning of both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems is required for an integrated and sustainable management of landscapes and riverscapes to maintain their ecosystem services and biological integrity at multiple scales. This talk will show how the connectivity in ecohydrological systems can be quantitatively assessed through a number of novel, integrated approaches. Importantly, this talk will discuss the need to understand the role of vegetation in regulating the connectivity between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Environmental tracers are valuable tools to understand the functioning of ecohydrological systems at the landscape scale in terms of understand flow paths, sources of water and associated biogeochemical interactions. Extensive empirical studies were conducted at the plot and hillslope scale to understand ecohydrological systems, and in particular, soil-vegetation-water connections. This empirically based understanding was then integrated into spatially distributed, tracer-aided models to understand mixing of water, flows to the stream and water age distribution at the catchment scale. We use the physically-based, distributed tracer-aided ecohydrologic model (EcH2O-ISO) which we have extended to track 2H and 18O (including fractionation processes) and water age. EcH2O-ISO combines a hydrologic scheme with an explicit representation of plant growth and phenology while resolving the energy balance across the soil-vegetation-atmosphere continuum. We also implemented isotope routing, mixing and fractionation (and used flux tracking for mean water age calculation). This tracer-aided modelling allows us to simulate stream and soil isotope responses very well and at some sites can account for the composition of xylem water. Our simulations showed contrasting time-variant age distributions of water exiting catchments as evapotranspiration and stream flow; these differences are strongly influenced by vegetation cover and other landscape controls (topography, soils, geology).