Hydrologic ecosystem services: linking ecohydrologic processes to human well‐being in water research and watershed management

Abstract

Ecosystem services, the benefits ecosystems provide to people, and hydrologic services, the subset of terrestrial ecosystem services related to water, appear with increasing frequency in water resources research and watershed management. Linking biophysical function to human well‐being is central to the theory of ecosystem services, so distinctive characteristics of research on hydrologic services arise from addressing the way people are affected by ecohydrologic processes. However, based on a rapid scoping of 381 peer‐reviewed studies of hydrologic services, I identified only a small fraction that appear to effectively make the link from biophysical processes to people. In their abstracts, many of the reviewed articles use the language of hydrologic services but appear to be essentially disciplinary studies, accounting for either biophysical functioning or specific beneficiaries in their analysis, but not both. In addition to guiding research, the direct link from biophysical processes to human well‐being makes hydrologic services an appealing foundation for watershed management. The hydrologic services framework has been used to assess conservation benefits, evaluate management practices, prioritize siting, account for externalities, and perform trade‐off or cost‐benefit analysis. Hydrologic services hold potential for novel research and effective watershed management, but challenges remain in executing interdisciplinary research and in addressing the idiosyncratic demands of local management. WIREs Water 2015, 2:345–358. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1081This article is categorized under: Water and Life > Conservation, Management, and Awareness Science of Water > Hydrological Processes Human Water > Value of Water