Abstract
We discuss the concepts, research methods, and infrastructure of watershed science. A watershed is a basic unit and possesses all of the complexities of the land surface system, thereby making it the best unit for practicing Earth system science. Watershed science is an Earth system science practiced on a watershed scale, and it has developed rapidly over the previous two decades. The goal of watershed science is to understand and predict the behavior of complex watershed systems and support the sustainable development of watersheds. However, watershed science confronts the difficulties of understanding complex systems, achieving scale transformation, and simulating the co-evolution of the human-nature system. These difficulties are fundamentally methodological challenges. Therefore, we discuss the research methods of watershed science, which include the self-organized complex system method, the upscaling method dominated by statistical mechanics, Darwinian approaches based on selection and evolutionary principles, hydro-economic and eco-economic methods that emphasize the human-nature system co-evolution, and meta-synthesis for addressing unstructured problems. These approaches together can create a bridge between holism and reductionism and work as a group of operational methods to combine hard and soft integrations and capture all aspects of both natural and human systems. These methods will contribute to the maturation of watershed science and to a methodology that can be used throughout land-surface systems science.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bergandi D, Blandin P. 1998. Holism vs. reductionism: Do ecosystem ecology and landscape ecology clarify the debate? Acta Biotheor, 46: 185–206
Bogena H, Bol R, Borchard N, et al. 2015. A terrestrial observatory approach to the integrated investigation of the effects of deforestation on water, energy, and matter fluxes. Sci China Earth Sci, 58: 61–75
Budyko M I. 1974. Climate and Life. New York: Elsevier
Beven K, Cloke H, Pappenberger F, et al. 2015. Hyperresolution information and hyperresolution ignorance in modelling the hydrology of the land surface. Sci China Earth Sci, 58: 25–35
Cai Q H, Wu Gang, Liu J K. 1998. Watershed ecology: A new approach for study and conserve the biodiversity of aqua ecosystems (in Chinese). Sci Technol Rev, 5: 24–26
Cai X. 2008. Implementation of holistic water resources-economic optimization models for river basin management-reflective experiences. Environ Modell Softw, 23: 2–18
Cai X M, Marston L, Ge Y C. 2015. Decision support for integrated river basin management-Scientific research challenges. Sci China Earth Sci, 58: 16–24
Chen Q W, Ouyang Z Y. 2005. Watershed ecology and modeling system (in Chinese). Acta Ecol Sin, 25: 1184–1190
Cheng G D. 2009. Integrated Management of the Water-Ecology-Economy System in the Heihe River Basin (in Chinese). Beijing: Science Press
Cheng G D, Li X, Zhao W Z, et al. 2014a. Integrated study of the water-ecosystem-economy in the Heihe River Basin. Nat Sci Rev, 1: 413–428
Cheng G D, Xiao H L, Fu B J, et al. 2014b. Advances in synthetic research on the eco-hydrological process of the Heihe River Basin (in Chinese). Adv Earth Sci, 29: 431–437
Cheng G D, Xiao H L, Li C Z, et al. 2008. Water saving eco-agriculture and integrated water resources management in the Heihe River Basin, northwest China (in Chinese). Adv Earth Sci, 23: 661–665
Cheng G D, Xu Z M, Zhong F L. 2011. Happiness oriented water resources management strategic planning in the Zhangye prefecture (in Chinese). J Glaciol Geocryol, 33: 1193–1202
Costanza R, d’Arge R, de Groot R, et al. 1997. The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature, 387: 253–260
Deng H B, Wang Q L, Cai Q H. 1998. Watershed ecology-New discipline, new idea and new approach (in Chinese). Chin J Appl Ecol, 9: 443–449
Dooge J C I. 1986. Looking for hydrologic laws. Water Resour Res, 22: 46S–58S
DeBeer C M, Wheater H, Quinton W L, et al. 2015. The Changing Cold Regions Network: Observation, diagnosis, and prediction of environmental change in the Saskatchewan and Mackenzie River Basins, Canada. Sci China Earth Sci, 58: 46–60
Eagleson P S. 2002. Ecohydrology: Darwinian Expression of Vegetation Form and Function. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Gu J F, Tang X J. 2005. Meta-synthesis approach to complex system modeling. Eur J Oper Res, 166: 597–614
Harte J. 2002. Toward a synthesis of the Newtonian and Darwinian worldviews. Physics Today, 55: 29–34
Harou J J, Pulido-Velazquez M, Rosenberg D E, et al. 2009. Hydro-economic models: Concepts, design, applications, and future prospects. J Hydrol, 375: 627–643
Jensen K H, Illangasekare T H. 2011. HOBE: A hydrological observatory. Vadose Zone J, 10: 1–7
King E G, Caylor K K. 2011. Ecohydrology in practice: strengths, conveniences, and opportunities. Ecohydrology, 4: 608–612
Koike T, Koudelova P, Jaranilla-Sanchez P A, et al. 2015. River management system development in Asia based on Data Integration and Analysis System (DIAS) under GEOSS. Sci China Earth Sci, 58: 76–95
Li X. 2013. Characterization, controlling and reduction of uncertainties in the modeling and observation of land-surface systems. Sci China Earth Sci, 57: 80–87
Li X, Cheng G D, Liu S M, et al. 2013. Heihe Watershed Allied Telemetry Experimental Research (HiWATER): Scientific objectives and experimental design. Bull Amer Meteorol Soc, 94: 1145–1160
Li X, Cheng G D, Ma M G, et al. 2010a. Digital Heihe River Basin. 4: Watershed observing system (in Chinese). Adv Earth Sci, 25: 866–876
Li X, Cheng G D, Kang ES, et al. 2010b. Digital Heihe River Basin. 3: Model integration (in Chinese). Adv Earth Sci, 25: 851–865
Li X, Wu L Z, Ma M G, et al. 2010c. Digital Heihe River Basin. 2: Data integration (in Chinese). Adv Earth Sci, 25: 306–316
Li Y D, Cui X, Dai R W. 2004. The framework, design and implementation of Hall for Workshop of Meta-Synthetic Engineering (in Chinese). Complex Systems Complex Sci, 1: 27–32
Nan Z T, Shu L L, Zhao Y B, Li X, Ding Y J, 2011. Integrated modeling environment and a preliminary application on the Heihe River Basin, China. Sci China Technol Sci, 54: 2145–2156
National Research Council. 1991. Opportunities in the Hydrologic Sciences. Washington D C: National Academy Press. 368
National Research Council. 1997. Watershed Research in the U.S. Geological Survey. Washington D C: National Academies Press. 96
National Research Council. 1999. New strategies for America’s Watersheds. Washington D C: National Academies Press. 328
National Research Council. 2007. River Science at the U.S. Geological Survey. Washington D C: National Academies Press. 206
National Research Council. 2012. Challenges and Opportunities in the Hydrologic Sciences. Washington D C: National Academies Press. 188
National Research Council. 2008. Earth Observations from Space: The First 50 Years of Scientific Achievements. National Academies Press
Perron J T, Richardson P W, Ferrier K L, et al. 2012. The root of branching river networks. Nature, 492: 100–103
Phillips S J, Anderson R P, Schapire R E. 2006. Maximum entropy modeling of species geographic distributions. Ecol Model, 190: 231–259
Qian X S. 1991. On the contents and methodology of geographic science (in Chinese). Acta Geogr Sin, 46: 257–265
Qian X S, Yu J Y, Dai R W. 1990. A new discipline of science-The study of open complex giant system and its methodology (in Chinese). Nat Mag, 13: 3–10
Reid W V, Chen D, Goldfarb L, et al. 2010. Earth system science for global sustainability: Grand challenges. Science, 330: 916–917
Rodríguez-Iturbe I, Rinaldo A. 2001. Fractal River Basins: Chance and Self-Organization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Rodriguez-Iturbe I, Caylor K K, Rinaldo A. 2011. Metabolic principles of river basin organization. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 108: 11751–11755
Schellnhuber H J. 1999. ‘Earth system’ analysis and the second Copernican revolution. Nature, 402: 19–23
Sivapalan M. 2005. Pattern, process and function: elements of a unified theory of hydrology at the catchment scale. In: Anderson M, ed. Encyclopedia of Hydrological Sciences. New York: Wiley. 193–219
Solé R V, Bascompte J. 2006. Self-Organization in Complex Ecosystems. Princeton: Princeton University Press
Sivapalan M, Savenije H H, Blöschl G. 2012. Socio-hydrology: A new science of people and water. Hydrol Process, 26: 1270–1276
Tang X J. 2007. Towards meta-synthetic support to unstructured problem solving. Int J Inform Technol Decis Making, 6: 491–508
Vereecken H, Kasteel R, Vanderborght J, et al. 2007. Upscaling hydraulic properties and soil water flow processes in heterogeneous soils: A review. Vadose Zone J, 6: 1–28
Wagener T, Sivapalan M, Troch P, et al. 2007. Catchment classification and hydrologic similarity. Geography Compass, 1: 901–931
Yang D W, Sun F, Liu Z, et al. 2007. Analyzing spatial and temporal variability of annual water-energy balance in nonhumid regions of China using the Budyko hypothesis. Water Resour Res, 43, doi: 10.1029/2006WR005224
Yang D W, Gao B, Jiao Y, et al. 2015. A distributed scheme developed for eco-hydrological modeling in the upper Heihe River. Sci China Earth Sci, 58: 36–45
Yao Y Y, Zheng C M, Tian Y, et al. 2015. Numerical modeling of regional groundwater flow in the Heihe River Basin, China: Advances and new insights. Sci China Earth Sci, 58: 3–15
Yu J Y, Zhou X J. 2002. The realization and application of meta-synthesis (in Chinese). Systems Eng-Theory Pract, 22: 26–32
Zacharias S, Bogena H, Samaniego L, et al. 2011. A network of terrestrial environmental observatories in Germany. Vadose Zone J, 10: 955–973
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cheng, G., Li, X. Integrated research methods in watershed science. Sci. China Earth Sci. 58, 1159–1168 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-015-5074-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-015-5074-x