Watershed Ecology and the Environment最新文献

{"title":"Satellite-based alpine water dynamics response to climate change across the Tibetan Plateau","authors":"Yuling Liang ,&nbsp;Hui Zhao ,&nbsp;Meihong Wang ,&nbsp;Xiaodan Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.05.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.05.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The spatiotemporal water dynamics across the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are important for sustainable utilization and management of water resources in Asia, particularly under the influence of climate change. However, comprehensive assessments of the long-term variations in lakes, marshlands, and terrestrial water storage (TWS) across the TP remain limited. This study utilized a long-term series of Landsat images of the TP to create annual lake maps with 30-m spatial resolution for the period 1990–2022, using a surface water frequency algorithm and Google Earth Engine (GEE). Based on the derived maps, the spatiotemporal trends of marshland area (MA) were analyzed. We also investigated changes in TWS from 2002 to 2022 using GRACE and GRACE-FO data products. Furthermore, we conducted a quantitative analysis of the drivers of changes in lake area (LA) and TWS. Results show that from 1990 to the 2020s, both LA and the number of lakes increased rapidly, with the most pronounced changes occurring in the Inner Plateau. In contrast, MA exhibited a declining trend during 1990–2020, also predominantly in the Inner Plateau. TWS exhibited an overall increasing trend, predominantly occurring in the Inner Plateau, where lakes are most densely distributed—mirroring the spatial pattern of lake expansion. The findings of this study could assist both the government and the general public in confronting the escalating challenges regarding water resources and water security in China.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101280,"journal":{"name":"Watershed Ecology and the Environment","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 274-286"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144212350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spatial distribution of soil organic carbon and nutrients in the southern Sundarbans of Bangladesh","authors":"Abu Bakar Siddique ,&nbsp;Muhaiminul Islam ,&nbsp;Nishat Tasnim ,&nbsp;Abdullah Al Maruf ,&nbsp;Abu Sayed Al Helal ,&nbsp;Masum Howlader","doi":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.03.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.03.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest plays a crucial role in carbon sequestration and coastal ecosystem stability. This study investigated the spatial distribution of surface soil nutrients, organic carbon (%OC), salinity, and pH, along with their interrelationships, at a regional scale in the southern part of the Sundarbans. In this study, a total of 21 soil samples were taken from 10 cm depth at 21 locations in the southern part of the Sundarbans areas. The surface soil samples were analyzed in the laboratory to determine essential soil properties, including organic carbon (%OC), nitrogen (%N), phosphorous (P), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), sulfur (S), pH, electric conductivity (EC), and salinity. The results showed spatial variations of nutrient concentrations, with higher surface soil organic carbon (%OC) and nutrient levels observed in areas with lower salinity and pH. Pearson’s correlation matrix (PCM) analysis revealed a significant negative correlation between surface OC and both salinity and pH (p &lt; 0.05). Moreover, the soils were predominantly silt-textured, with nutrient levels ranging from normal to brackish-saline, largely influenced by salinity intrusion. Cluster analysis (CA) and principal component analysis (PCA) revealed distinct patterns in surface soil physicochemical properties, suggesting that salinity, pH, and organic carbon are main factors influencing nutrient distribution in the study area. The study emphasizes the need to conserve the Sundarbans by reducing anthropogenic activities, regulating freshwater inflows to control salinity, and promoting mangrove regeneration to maintain soil health and ecological balance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101280,"journal":{"name":"Watershed Ecology and the Environment","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 310-326"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144517795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Hydrological challenges and agricultural opportunities in Northern Ghana: addressing climate change impacts and future pathways","authors":"Prosper Kpiebaya ,&nbsp;Abdul-Ganiyu Shaibu ,&nbsp;Eliasu Salifu ,&nbsp;Mabel Kumah ,&nbsp;Mohammed Alhassan Issah ,&nbsp;Rophina Muotieme Tingan","doi":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.08.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.08.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The management of water resources in agriculture is of paramount importance, especially in regions facing hydrological challenges exacerbated by climate change variability. This study explores the hydrological challenges, opportunities, and the way forward for agriculture in the Northern part of Ghana. The region faces issues such as water scarcity, erratic rainfall patterns, land degradation, floods, and droughts, which significantly impact agricultural productivity and livelihoods. This study identifies the region’s critical water management gaps and highlights both barriers and opportunities for sustainable agricultural growth. Our analysis emphasizes that climate-smart water technologies, such as drip irrigation, rainwater harvesting, and hydrological modeling, can significantly enhance water-use efficiency and resilience. Coupled with participatory water governance, infrastructure upgrades, and sustainable land management, these approaches can mitigate water scarcity, soil erosion, and climate risks. Through a comprehensive review of literature and analysis of hydrological data, this study provides insights into the complex interactions between climate change, water resources, and agriculture in Northern Ghana. By understanding these dynamics and implementing appropriate adaptation strategies, stakeholders can work towards building a more resilient agricultural sector capable of addressing the challenges posed by climate change variability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101280,"journal":{"name":"Watershed Ecology and the Environment","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 383-397"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144841114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Lake Babati ecosystem, Tanzania: biodiversity status, anthropogenic threats, and land use implications − a review","authors":"Jackson Henry Katonge,&nbsp;Leopody Gayo","doi":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.06.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.06.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This is a systematic literature review exploring the effects of anthropogenic activities and land use changes on biodiversity and the ecological health of Lake Babati. A structured search using PRISMA (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and <em>meta</em>-analyses) 2020 employed three major academic databases, namely Scopus, PubMed, and Web of Science. A key factor for choosing sources was their connection to Lake, along with being peer-reviewed, verified by institutions, providing real data on ecological or socio-economic impacts, and being written in English. Information was collected and analyzed by categorizing it into key drivers: changes in land use, pollution, and overfishing. Farming near the lake, cattle grazing and drinking, unsustainable brick-making, overgrazing, illegal fishing, inadequate waste management, and urban expansion have been reported. These practices have led to pollution, the spread of water hyacinth and sedges, nutrient loading, eutrophication, decreased dissolved oxygen, deforestation, soil erosion, flooding, and biodiversity loss-all of which endanger aquatic life. Between 1992 and 2022, land-use changes in Babati Town included increases in institutional land (797.2 ha), industrial land (64.7 ha), and agricultural land (691 ha), while forested areas (−705 ha), undeveloped land (−993 ha), and the lake surface (−173 ha) declined. Fish catch weight fell by 88 %, and daily catch rates declined by 90.8 %, with the most severe decline occurring between 1992 and 2002. Ecological changes have impacted the livelihoods of local communities that depended on fishing and agriculture. We recommend sustainable land use, better water quality monitoring, community conservation, local socio-economic resilience, and strong governance to support waste management and ecosystem restoration.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101280,"journal":{"name":"Watershed Ecology and the Environment","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 299-309"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144329617","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Weakly supervised bird-flock counting in wetlands based on multimodal optical image perception","authors":"Shuxiang Feng ,&nbsp;Mengxue Lyu ,&nbsp;Xuetao Han ,&nbsp;Chang Liu ,&nbsp;Jun Qiu","doi":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.05.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.05.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As crucial bio-indicators for wetland ecosystem health assessment, wetland birds play a pivotal role in ecological monitoring and conservation. This study address three challenges in avian population monitoring using optical remote sensing imagery, including high cost of manual annotation, difficulty in extracting small target features in complex background, and insufficient adaptability of multi-scale target recognition. We propose a weakly supervised bird-flock counting method based on the optical image multimodal perception model integrating optical image features and visual semantic features without location annotation. Based on optical image feature enhancement, visual semantic features related to the counting task are extracted through visual cues (counting text prompt), and a learnable feature adapter is introduced to fuse optical image features with visual semantic features. Thus, an optical image multimodal perception model with residual connection mechanism and multi-scale information interaction module is constructed. The residual connection mechanism effectively alleviates the interference caused by posture changes and complex background, and the multi-scale information interaction module solves the problem of target scale change through cross-scale semantic propagation. We construct an optical images bird-flock dataset named Wetland-Bird-Count for the Yellow River Delta coastal wetlands. The experimental results show that the MAE and MSE of the proposed method are 45.2 and 54.2, which is much more accurate than other weakly supervised and unsupervised methods and close to the fully supervised counting method, which verifies that the weakly supervised cluster counting using optical image visual cues can improve the accuracy of bird flock counting under lightweight annotation. This study provides a reliable quantitative analysis tool for optical image ecological monitoring.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101280,"journal":{"name":"Watershed Ecology and the Environment","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 249-257"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144147631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Geospatial analysis of wetland dynamics and watershed monitoring in Pokhara Valley, Nepal","authors":"Krishna Prasad Sigdel ,&nbsp;Narayan Prasad Ghimire ,&nbsp;Binod Dawadi","doi":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.06.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.06.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Lakes are essential components of ecosystems and serve as important indicators of climate change and human impact. This study employed historical remote sensing images and geospatial analysis to examine the dynamics of three significant wetlands (Phewa, Begnas, and Rupa lakes) in the Pokhara Valley of Nepal, which are designated as Ramsar sites. Changes in land use land cover (LULC) and soil erosion within the watersheds of these lakes were also monitored using Landsat images and soil erosion dataset, respectively. Additionally, climatic trends in the Pokhara Valley were analyzed using data from ground-based monitoring stations. The results highlight a notable 11.39 % decline in the surface area of Phewa Lake since 1989, while the surface areas of Begnas and Rupa have remained relatively stable. Changes in LULC show an increase in forest cover (+47 to 64 %) and decrease in croplands (−36 to 59 %) across all watersheds. Urbanization is most pronounced in the Phewa watershed, leading to increased pollution and shoreline encroachment. The decline in cropland may improve water quality by decreasing agricultural runoff. However, soil erosion is most severe in cropland areas, resulting in Phewa lake receiving the highest sediment influx among the three lakes. The lake regions have been experiencing changes in temperature (0.3 °C per decade) and rainfall (insignificant slight increase). Changes in these lakes are primarily driven by watershed dynamics and human activities. These results underscore the necessity for integrated watershed management and further in-depth investigation into the effects of climate change on these ecosystems for regional sustainability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101280,"journal":{"name":"Watershed Ecology and the Environment","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 287-298"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144270051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Integrated watershed management for transforming dryland livelihoods: A climate-smart strategy for sustainable dryland agriculture in India","authors":"Ram A. Jat ,&nbsp;Dinesh Jinger ,&nbsp;Anita Kumawat ,&nbsp;Saswat Kumar Kar ,&nbsp;Indu Rawat ,&nbsp;Suresh Kumar ,&nbsp;Venkatesh Paramesh ,&nbsp;Vijay Singh Meena ,&nbsp;Rajesh Kaushal ,&nbsp;Kuldeep Kumar ,&nbsp;Hari Singh Meena ,&nbsp;S.P. Wani ,&nbsp;Rajbir Singh ,&nbsp;M. Madhu","doi":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.03.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.03.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In India, 51 % of the net sown area relies on rainfed agriculture, with 40 % of landholdings unirrigated and 13 % partially irrigated. Rainfed farming produces 40 % of food grains and supports two-thirds of the livestock population but faces challenges like land degradation, low productivity, and biodiversity loss due to erratic monsoons and extreme weather. Additionally, India’s water scarcity is worsening, with per capita availability expected to reduce from 802 cubic meters in 2022 to 677 cubic meters by 2050. Therefore, to meet the diverse food requirements of the burgeoning population of the country, conservation of natural resources, and improving the living standard of the resource-poor small and marginal farmers is imperative. Integrated watershed management (IWM) has emerged as a climate-smart strategy to address these challenges by enhancing soil and water conservation, agricultural productivity, and livelihoods in dryland systems. This study assesses the impact of IWM on dryland agriculture in India by analyzing various interventions such as <em>in-situ</em> and <em>ex-situ</em> water conservation, soil health management, and the use of modern technologies like remote sensing (RS) and geographic information systems (GIS). The results revealed that the adoption of IWM practices has led to significant improvements in soil moisture retention (20–25 %), soil organic carbon (22–32 %) agricultural productivity (30–45 %), and water use efficiency (15–25 %). Additionally, soil conservation techniques have reduced soil loss and runoff by 25–50 % and 50–60 %, respectively. Furthermore, the cultivation of lemon grass (<em>Cymbopogon flexuosus</em>), anjan grass (<em>Cenchrus ciliaris</em>), and bamboo (<em>Bambusa spp</em>.) could be the nature-based solutions for mitigating the impact of climate change due to their soil binding capacity and carbon sequestration potential. Moreover, this review indicates the potential of fast-growing trees (<em>Melia dubia</em>) under the agroforestry system in enhancing carbon sequestration by &gt;100 % over sole cultivation. These results demonstrate that IWM is a sustainable solution to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on dryland farming systems and improve rural livelihoods. Further, the study suggests that IWM practices helps to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs) such as zero hunger, no poverty, and climate action etc., particularly in the face of climate change in water-scarce regions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101280,"journal":{"name":"Watershed Ecology and the Environment","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 159-177"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143816974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Hydrochemical characteristics, water quality and diatom assemblage in Dordi River, Nepal","authors":"Punam Phuyal ,&nbsp;Shraddha Ranabhat ,&nbsp;Sanjal Khatri ,&nbsp;Nabin Lamichhane ,&nbsp;Ramesh Raj Pant ,&nbsp;Lal Bahadur Thapa ,&nbsp;Ram Kailash Prasad Yadav","doi":"10.1016/j.wsee.2024.12.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsee.2024.12.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding hydrochemistry and diatom assemblage is important for assessing the health of aquatic ecosystems. This study has analyzed the water quality and diatom communities in the Dordi River, which is one of the major tributaries of the Marsyangdi River in Nepal. The primary research question being addressed in the study was what is the state of water quality parameters of Dordi River and how do they relate to the distribution and composition of diatoms. The water quality parameters of the river like temperature, pH, electric conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), dissolved oxygen (DO), turbidity, and total alkalinity (TA) were measured <em>in-situ</em>, whereas concentrations of major ions (Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, K⁺, Na⁺, NH₄⁺, HCO₃^–, Cl^–, SO₄^2–, NO₃^–, and PO₄^3–), biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) were analyzed in the laboratory by collecting water samples from different parts of the river. Piper plot, Gibbs plot, Mixing plots, redundancy analysis, and principal component analysis were applied for evaluating the spatial variation of anions and cations in water. The results showed alkaline water following the pattern: Ca²⁺&gt;Mg²⁺&gt;Na⁺&gt;K⁺&gt;NH₄⁺ for cation and HCO₃^–&gt;Cl^–&gt;SO₄^2–&gt;PO₄^3–&gt;NO₃^– for anion with calcium-bicarbonate dominant lithology in the river. Overall, the results highlight that the drinking and irrigation water qualities of the river were found to be excellent. Additionally, among 75 diatom species observed in the samples, the Bacillariophyceae was the dominant class covering 92% of the species. The results indicated that the diatom species richness declined as elevation increased. The distribution of diatoms was also influenced by the land use types near the water sampling points, tributaries and the main river. Overall, the physico-chemical quality of water showed significant influence on diatom species composition. The findings of this study could be useful for understanding hydrochemistry and association of water quality and diatoms in river basins of the Himalaya.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101280,"journal":{"name":"Watershed Ecology and the Environment","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 23-35"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143158894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Closed depressions and karst landforms in Rif Alpine Cordillera (Northern Morocco): The case of dolomitic Jbel Dersa Massif","authors":"Samira Kaddouri ,&nbsp;Younes EL Kharim ,&nbsp;Kamal Agharroud ,&nbsp;Ali Bounab ,&nbsp;Youssef El Miloudi ,&nbsp;Reda Sahrane ,&nbsp;Ahmed Taoufik Ouahabi","doi":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.08.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.08.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The morphology, distribution, and structural control of karst closed depressions in a dolomitic karst landscape are the focus of this study. The study area is the Jbel Dersa Massif (JDM), part of the “Dorsale Calcaire” (DC) unit within the Rif Mountain range in northern Morocco. A combined analysis of geomorphological mapping and structural studies reveal that the Pliocene dismantling phase smoothed the crests of the original imbricate thrust fronts, characteristic feature of the DC unit’s structure. The flattening of the massif’s summit facilitated the dissolution of the rock surface. In addition to the massif’s ruiniform landscape, the observed karstic features include fracture lapies, closed karstic depressions at the summit, and travertine deposits along the structural contacts with the bordering non-karstic units. The 26 identified closed depressions are dissolution dolines. Morphometric analysis indicates that these dolines are primarily located in the endorheic and axial zones of the massif and are preferentially aligned along tectonic faults. Structural, geomorphological, and ERT profile analyses of two sinkholes confirm the structural control over their development and demonstrate that seepage occurs through the fractured material along fault planes. This study highlights the scientific, environmental, and water-supply significance of the JDM. Its karst depressions, serving as primary infiltration zones, play a crucial role in local hydrogeology, providing water sources for several settlements that rely on the massif’s springs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101280,"journal":{"name":"Watershed Ecology and the Environment","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 398-412"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144895242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Artificial intelligence applications in hydrological studies and ecological restoration of watersheds: A systematic review","authors":"Fernando Morante-Carballo ,&nbsp;Mirka Arcentales-Rosado ,&nbsp;Jhon Caicedo-Potosí ,&nbsp;Paúl Carrión-Mero","doi":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.05.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsee.2025.05.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Water resources management is fundamental to the sustainability of river basins. Water quality is affected by pollution caused by human activities. In this context, the restoration of degraded watersheds helps soil recovery, sustainable water management, reforestation, biodiversity conservation and mitigation of human impacts. Artificial intelligence (AI) innovates data management and analysis processes by optimising decision-making and data analysis in hydrological studies and ecological restoration. This research aims to analyse scientific information related to the integration of AI in studies on hydrogeology and ecological restoration of watersheds by analysing scientific databases for knowledge of the intellectual structure, lines and trends of research. The methodology includes three phases: i) search criteria and data processing (Scopus-Web of Science); ii) analysis of the intellectual and conceptual structure; and iii) application of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method. The results indicate that there is a total of 171 records, with a 4.49% growth in scientific production in the last four years, focusing on artificial neural networks (10.53%), artificial intelligence (3.51%), genetic algorithms (1.17%) and machine learning (1.17%). This increase is due to the climatic variation generated in recent years, driven by anthropogenic pressures, especially in the agricultural sector due to the high demand for fertiliser and pesticide pollution. This problem has prompted the search for more far-reaching environmental management technologies, making it a potential niche for study. China (72.51%) and the United States (25.73%) are the most outstanding contributors to production in this area. On the other hand, there is less research in this area in developing countries such as South Africa (2.92%), Colombia (1.17%), and Argentina (0.58%), among others. This analysis identifies opportunities and challenges in applying AI for water resource optimisation and water quality prediction, providing an innovative conceptual framework for sustainable watershed management.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101280,"journal":{"name":"Watershed Ecology and the Environment","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 230-248"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144105700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}