| Session Details | |
| Section | HS - Hydrological Sciences |
| Session Title | Ecohydrologic Processes Of Urban And Rural Environments In Changing Climate |
| Main Convener | Dr. Xixi Wang (Old Dominion University, United States) |
| Co-convener(s) | Prof. Jeanne Jinhui Huang (Nankai University, China) Mr. Xu Qiujin (Chinese Academcy of Envirnmental Sciences, China) Prof. Tingxi Liu (Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, China) |
| Session Description | Given that human activities in urban environment are distinctly different from those in rural environment in terms of the activities’ intensity, type, and scope, the alterations to natural ecohydrologic processes of these two environments can have very different characteristics while they share some common consequences. Also, such alterations can be further exacerbated by climate change. For both environments, as a result of the alterations, low-frequency (e.g., one-percent-chance or lower) flooding and drought events tend to occur more often, while eco-environment degradations (e.g., desertification and lake eutrophication) tend to become a challenge to sustainable development of the society. In recent years, more and more cities and population centers are incurring floods with a larger magnitude, causing possible life and property losses, while many freshwater lakes are becoming eutrophic because of nonpoint source contaminants from urban and rural runoffs. To address the aforementioned issues, concerted efforts are underway to develop various cost-effective adaptive measures, such as low impact developments (LIDs), “sponge city ” concepts (SCCs), and best management practices (BMPs), that can be placed on ground to restore altered ecohydrologic processes. However, such efforts are currently puzzled because of our limited knowledge of the processes and their driving factors. This session calls for presentations of wide-range topics on ecohydrologic processes of both urban and rural environments. Example topics are, but not limited to: 1) field observations and model developments or applications; 2) conceptual approaches for planning, design, implementation, and assessment of LIDs, SCCs, and BMPs; and 3) case studies and/or pilot projects. |