Emerging themes and future directions in watershed resilience research

Abstract

A review of ecological, social, engineering, and integrative approaches to define and apply resilience thinking is presented and comparatively discussed in the context of watershed management. Knowledge gaps are identified through an assessment of this literature and compilation of a set of research questions through stakeholder engagement activities. We derive a proposed research agenda describing key areas of inquiry such as watershed resilience variables and their interactions; leveraging watershed natural properties, processes, and dynamics to facilitate and enable resilience; analytical methods and tools including monitoring, modeling, metrics, and scenario planning, and their applications to watersheds at different spatial and temporal scales, and infusing resilience concepts as core values in watershed adaptive management.