Water redistribution is a fundamental mechanism driving the functioning and dynamics of arid and semi-arid ecosystems. There, a positive feedback exists between vegetation biomass and soil water availability for plants, and it is often responsible of a regular spatial pattern development. The consequences of such spatial patterns in plant and water occurrence have been extensively studied in the field of eco-hydrology, both experimentally and theoretically. Here, we review the main contributions of the ecohydrological models incorporating feedbacks to the knowledge of arid and semi-arid ecosystems functioning, as well as the future research needs and directions in this research field.