Ecohydrology under the spotlight
The team of Professors Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe (Princeton University, USA) and Andrea Rinaldo, director of Ecohydrology Laboratory (ECHO), winners of the Creativity Prize "Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water".
The Creativity Prize "Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water" aims to give recognition to exceptional and innovative scientific work which contributes to the sustainable availability of potable water and the alleviation of water scarcity, particularly in arid regions. The Prize also seeks to encourage the development of proactive, practical, and cost-effective means for making water available to people, wherever they may be.
This distinction is being awarded to Prof. I. Rodriguez-Iturbe and A. Rinaldo for their invention and development of the new field of Ecohydrology, which bridges the gap between the physical and life sciences. Some of their work shows in particular how river networks act as ecological corridors, and how they influence the spread of a water-borne disease like Cholera that still a plague society today.