Inundation dynamics are believed to strongly structure floodplain forest ecosystems. Yet, disentangling complex biophysical relationships that underlie forest dynamics remains challenging due in part to 1) imprecise or spatially limited characterizations of flood gradients and 2) difficulty reconciling fine-scale heterogeneity with broader physical constraints such as regional physiography and river-valley morphology. Drawing from several hydro-geographical studies, I illustrate several approaches to quantifying inundation dynamics to build process-based knowledge of floodplain forest ecosystems that can be translated across river systems. These studies also demonstrate how characterizations of inundation dynamics may be made at different spatial and temporal scales and using different types and quantities of data.
Results/Conclusions
First, I describe regional patterns of variation in inundation frequency, duration, magnitude, and seasonality for nearly 1,000 stream gauges across the continental USA and demonstrate how these hydrologic characterizations may be used to contextualize findings from local studies of floodplain forest dynamics or inform how new studies may be designed to capture important physical gradients. I then show how point-based hydrologic analyses of gauge data may be made spatially-explicit for the purposes of informing systemic forest stewardship in a geospatial analysis of the 2.6 million acre Upper Mississippi River floodplain. Finally, I discuss how 2D hydraulic models can be used to quantify flooding dynamics in ecologically meaningful ways at finer scales within river reaches to understand local patterns in forest composition using examples from the Maryland Piedmont. These hydro-geographic analyses demonstrate the utility of spatially-explicit flood quantifications at various spatial scales to help develop robust, process-based relationships that inform floodplain forest ecology and management.