Step 1: Joseph Barrell was an American geologist working in the early twentieth century.
Step 2: He is credited with introducing the concept and the term lithosphere to describe the rigid outer rocky layer of the Earth, distinguishing it from the underlying asthenosphere.
Step 3: Succession is associated with ecologists like Clements and Cowles, natality is a demographic/population ecology term, and water resource studies are not linked to Barrell's name.
Step 4: So Barrell's known contribution is the concept of the lithosphere.