Flood ecology

Societal perceptions of river floods are typically negative because of the death and destruction they may cause, although scientists and natural resource managers have long recognized the critical ecological role of floods. Like fire and some other ecological disturbances, river flooding intersects many aspects of ecology and society. But unlike fire, flooding receives relatively little attention in the disturbance ecology literature. We call for more focused recognition of flood ecology as a discipline to help river science better inform societal perceptions through developing a better understanding of the ecological roles of flooding. We contend that the absence of a discipline of flood ecology has constrained progress in our understanding of how rivers function and that a formal conceptualization could help reveal the positive aspects of flooding. Finally, we propose a series of questions that we believe a discipline of flood ecology should address.