The Influence of Landscape Disturbance on Catchment Processes

Dear Colleagues,

Landscape disturbance—including land use change, deforestation, urban expansion, agricultural intensification, and climate-driven events—has increasingly altered the hydrological and ecological dynamics of catchment systems worldwide. These disturbances reshape surface runoff patterns, sediment transport, evapotranspiration rates, soil infiltration capacity, and groundwater recharge. Beyond physical hydrological shifts, they also impact ecosystem service provisioning, such as water purification, carbon storage, and flood regulation. In recent decades, ecological hydrology has emerged as a vital interdisciplinary field to understand how catchment-scale water processes interact with ecosystem functioning. However, key uncertainties remain regarding the thresholds, feedbacks, and spatial heterogeneity of disturbance effects. In response to global change and restoration initiatives (e.g., reforestation, ecological zoning), it becomes imperative to assess how different disturbance regimes influence the resilience and functionality of hydrological systems and their associated ecosystem services.

The aim of this Special Issue is to advance scientific understanding of how various forms of landscape disturbance influence catchment-scale hydrological processes and associated ecosystem services. By integrating insights from ecohydrology, landscape ecology, and watershed modeling, this issue seeks to uncover the mechanisms, patterns, and consequences of disturbances such as land use change, deforestation, and ecological restoration. The Special Issue will also highlight methodological innovations and practical applications that support sustainable catchment management under scenarios of environmental change. Through interdisciplinary contributions, it aims to build a comprehensive framework for assessing disturbance impacts and informing nature-based solutions for resilient watershed systems.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link the following themes:

• Landscape disturbance effects on hydrological processes (e.g., runoff, infiltration, baseflow, evapotranspiration);
• Interactions between land use/land cover change and ecosystem service dynamics in catchments;
• Modeling approaches to assess watershed responses to natural and anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., using InVEST, SWAT, CA-Markov, machine learning);
• Soil erosion, sediment transport, and water quality under disturbance scenarios;
• Ecological restoration and its hydrological and ecosystem service impacts (e.g., reforestation, ecological zoning, slope management);
• Climate change and its compound effects with land use disturbance on hydrological regimes;
• Integration of hydrological modeling with ecosystem service valuation for policy and watershed planning;
• Case studies on catchment-scale management under environmental stressors.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Hydrology.

Dr. Hao Chen
Dr. Linjing Qiu
Dr. Wenbin Ding
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• ecohydrology
• landscape disturbance
• watershed hydrology
• ecosystem services
• land use/land cover change
• soil erosion and sediment dynamics
• catchment modeling
• ecological restoration
• hydrological resilience
• nature-based solutions