Effective management of soil and water resources is fundamental to sustainable development, ecosystem resilience, and human well-being. Connectivity provides a powerful framework for understanding the transfer of water, sediment, nutrients, and associated materials across heterogeneous landscapes and their responses to climate variability, extreme events, land-use change, and human interventions. In particular, hydrological and sediment connectivity link landscape structure with hydro-geomorphic processes and provide an important basis for understanding watershed responses to environmental change.
Recent advances in field monitoring, remote sensing, geomorphometric analysis, process-based modelling, and data-driven approaches have improved our ability to quantify connectivity across spatial and temporal scales. However, challenges remain in translating connectivity assessment into process understanding, predictive capability, and effective management. Key questions include where and when critical source–pathway–sink linkages emerge, how connectivity changes under natural and anthropogenic disturbances, and how interventions can enhance desirable connectivity or promote strategic disconnectivity.
This session invites studies developing and applying connectivity-based approaches for sustainable watershed management. We welcome contributions addressing hydrological, sediment, geomorphic, and related ecological connectivity using field observations, experiments, remote sensing, geomorphometric indices, process-based models, and data-driven or machine-learning approaches. Studies focusing on temporal dynamics, cross-scale interactions, extreme events, land-use and climate change, and structural–functional connectivity are particularly encouraged.
The session also promotes the application of connectivity concepts to nature-based solutions and watershed restoration, including vegetation restoration, riparian management, and soil and water conservation measures. By bridging process understanding, monitoring, prediction, and management, we aim to clarify where, when, and how connectivity can be managed to reduce soil erosion and sediment-related risks, enhance watershed resilience, and support sustainable soil and water resource management.