1 Eco-hydrology’s Past and Future in Focus

Lately, something called eco-hydrology has blazed forth as the next big thing in hydrologic science. A series of four papers on the topic appeared in Advances in Water Resources last year [Rodriguez-Iturbe et al., 2001]. Before that, in 1996, the International Hydrology Programme (IHP) initiated a new project under the title of eco-hydrology [Zalewski et al., 1997], and the AGU Spring Meeting, also in 1996, included a special session on eco-hydrology. Since then, a book of edited contributions has appeared [Baird and Wilby, 1999], and eco-hydrology was the topic of both a “vision for the future ” in Water Resources Research [Rodriguez-Iturbe, 2000] and the Langbein Lecture at AGU’s 2000 Spring Meeting. Another session on the topi