Sociohydrology, ecohydrology, and the space-time dynamics of human-altered catchments
Leonardo Bertassello, Morgan Levy, Marc F. Müller
Abstract
A variety of interdisciplinary fields have provided distinct and complementary perspectives on human-water systems over the past few decades. In that context, an important distinctive feature of sociohydrology is its historical and methodological link to ecohydrology. This linkage implies a compatibility between the two fields that can be leveraged to address important modeling challenges in both fields. Sociohydrology has thus far focused on temporal dynamics and can benefit from recent advances in ecohydrology to represent spatial dynamics in coupled human-water systems. Conversely, as it increasingly focuses on human-altered catchments, ecohydrology can benefit from sociohydrology in terms of developing models of human behavior that are compatible with (eco)hydrological models, while being consistent with prevailing social science theories. We review recent work in ecohydrology and sociohydrology that substantiates these two arguments, and discuss the modeling of water-borne diseases as an example of a promising avenue of research that connects the two fields.