Climate change and freshwater ecology: Hydrological and ecological methods of comparable complexity are needed to predict risk

Abstract

Many freshwater ecosystems are in decline because of anthropogenic disturbance including climate change, yet our understanding of ecological vulnerability to future conditions including climatic variation is limited. Understanding climate risks to freshwater ecosystems requires combining hydrological and ecological knowledge. While there have been significant advances in ecohydrological approaches when applied within the large array of methods available for undertaking impact assessments, the ecological and hydrological elements are often not well-integrated. This results in a mismatch in their ability to accommodate the inherent uncertainty in both impacts and responses. We examine publishe..