Background
Water is the primary medium through which society will experience the effects of climate change. Altered precipitation patterns, enhanced evapotranspiration rates, loss of snow and ice, declines in groundwater storage, and increased risk of flooding and droughts will all have important implications for our water resources. In fact, we are already experiencing climate-related perturbations to the water cycle, as manifested through increases in temperatures and frequency of weather extremes across the globe (IPCC, 2021). However, a critical but often neglected aspect of predicting future hydrological change is recognizing the implications of historical land-use decisions that can act to either enhance or reduce the resilience of both the quality and quantity of water. Such land use decisions may create ‘locked-in’ effects reflecting the policies and path dependencies that underpin management inertia (Unruh and Carrillo-Hermosilla, 2006), as well as physical disturbances that caused hydrological changes that are difficult to reverse (Lindenmayer et al. 2011).