HESS Opinions: Functional units: a novel framework to explore the link between spatial organization and hydrological functioning of intermediate scale catchments
This opinion paper proposes a novel framework for exploring how spatial organization alongside
with spatial heterogeneity controls functioning of intermediate scale catchments of organized
complexity. Key idea is that spatial organization in landscapes implies that functioning of
intermediate scale catchments is controlled by a hierarchy of functional units: hillslope scale
lead topologies and embedded elementary functional units (EFUs). We argue that similar soils and
vegetation communities and thus also soil structures "co-developed" within EFUs in an adaptive,
self-organizing manner as they have been exposed to similar flows of energy, water and nutrients
from the past to the present. Class members of the same EFU (class) are thus deemed to belong to
the same ensemble with respect to controls of the energy balance and related vertical flows of
capillary bounded soil water and heat. Class members of superordinate lead topologies are
characterized by the same spatially organized arrangement of EFUs along the gradient driving
lateral flows of free water as well as a similar surface and bedrock topography. We hence
postulate that they belong to the same ensemble with respect to controls on rainfall runoff
transformation and related vertical and lateral fluxes of free water. We expect class members of
these functional units to have a distinct way how their architecture controls the interplay of
state dynamics and integral flows, which is typical for all members of one class but dissimilar
among the classes. This implies that we might infer on the typical dynamic behavior of the most
important classes of EFU and lead topologies in a catchment, by thoroughly characterizing a few
members of each class. A major asset of the proposed framework, which steps beyond the concept of
hydrological response units, is that it can be tested experimentally. In this respect, we reflect
on suitable strategies based on stratified observations drawing from process hydrology, soil
physics, geophysics, ecology and remote sensing which are currently conducted in replicates of
candidate functional units in the Attert basin (Luxembourg), to search for typical and similar
functional and structural characteristics. A second asset of this framework is that it blueprints
a way towards a structurally more adequate model concept for water and energy cycles in
intermediate scale catchments, which balances necessary complexity with falsifiability. This is
because EFU and lead topologies are deemed to mark a hierarchy of "scale breaks" where
simplicity with respect to the energy balance and stream flow generation emerges from spatially organized
process-structure interactions. This offers the opportunity for simplified descriptions of these
processes that are nevertheless physically and thermodynamically consistent. In this respect we
reflect on a candidate model structure that (a) may accommodate distributed observations of states
and especially terrestrial controls on driving gradients to constrain the space of feasible model
structures and (b) allows testing the possible added value of organizing principles to understand
the role of spatial organization from an optimality perspective
