Human activities alter the interplay between the land surface and climate at different spatial and temporal scales. In particular, land-use changes affect both the atmospheric water and energy cycles, leading to changes in the mesoscale convective activity, large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns and moisture recycling. This affects the intensity and distribution of rainfall with potentially serious consequences for the resilience of social-ecological systems that in many regions are vulnerable to changes in water availability.

At the global scale, changes in precipitation on land will affect the stability of environmental and agricultural systems and may trigger non-linear regime shifts. Examples include rainfed agricultural ecosystems, where decreasing rainfall reduces crop growth to the extent that crop cultivation no longer is a viable livelihood option. In other ecosystems such as forests and savannahs, reductions in moisture availability possibly amplified by the effects of climate change and changes in fire regimes increase the risk of critical transitions between different alternative stable states in vegetation (e.g., shift from forest to savanna, or savanna to shrubland).

In this session we propose to link current understanding related to the impact of land-use and climate change on the hydrological cycle, with emerging understanding of resilience of socio-ecological systems. Thus, we aim to combine hitherto separate research disciplines such as hydrology, climatology, ecology, agricultural and social sciences, and welcome submissions considering different research approaches such as modeling, remote sensing data analysis and measurements at different spatial and temporal scales.