Nonsmooth Dynamic Behaviors Inherited from an Ecohydrological Model: Mutation, Bifurcation, and Chaos

The existence of nontrivial dynamic behaviors in a hydrological system is intensively discussed in the literature. However, most of the work has been done from the nonlinear data analysis perspective, with only a few exceptions, due to the mathematical difficulties for theoretical analysis. In this study, a simple but comprehensive enough ecohydrological model with the pulsed atmospheric forcing was developed from the process analysis perspective. The model was then utilized to analyze the non-trivial dynamic behaviors in a coupled ecohydrological system qualitatively and numerically. Our results confirm the existence of multiple stationary states discussed by many researchers. Furthermore, parameter bifurcation was studied and the phenomenon of mutation is found to be rather common. Also, the chaotic characteristic of the system state is obtained under some specific parameters. Parts of these behaviors were seldom reported through the deterministic dynamic analysis done previously