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Editors of several journals in the field of hydrology met during the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union—EGU in Vienna in April 2017. This event was a follow-up of similar meetings held in 2013 and 2015. These meetings enable the group of editors to review the current status of the journals and the publication process, and to share thoughts on future strategies. Journals were represented at the 2017 meeting by their editors, as shown in the list of authors. The main points on invigorating hydrological research through journal publications are communicated in this joint editorial published in the above journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work aims to provide a dynamic assessment of flood risk and community resilience by explicitly accounting for variable human behaviour, e.g. risk-taking and awareness-raising attitudes. We consider two different types of socio-hydrological systems: green systems, whereby societies deal with risk only via non-structural measures, and technological systems, whereby risk is dealt with also by structural measures, such as levees. A stylized model of human–flood interactions is first compared to real-world data collected at two test sites (People’s Republic of Bangladesh and the city of Rome, Italy) and then used to explore plausible trajectories of flood risk. The results show that flood risk in technological systems tends to be significantly lower than in green systems. However, technological systems may undergo catastrophic events, which lead to much higher losses. Furthermore, green systems prove to be more resilient than technological ones, which makes them more capable of withstanding environmental and social changes.EDITOR D. KoutsoyiannisASSOCIATE EDITOR not assigned [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents hydrochemical data of an AMD stream, Poderosa Creek, in the Iberian Pyrite Belt, obtained between its source, in the Poderosa Mine portal, and its confluence with the Odiel River. The main objective is to establish potential interdependent relationships between sulphate and metal loads and the following physico-chemical variables: pH, electrical conductivity (EC), redox potential (EH) and dissolved oxygen (DO). All the parameters show an overall increasing tendency from the tunnel exit to the confluence at the Odiel River. The TDS and EC are two relevant exceptions. They behave similarly, showing a decreasing trend and a strong inflection that describes a minimum immediately after the discharging point. Spatial analysis combined with statistical tools reveal typical AMD processes and the respective physico-chemical implications. Inputs with distinctive hydrochemical signatures impose relevant modifications in the Poderosa Creek waters. This indicates low hydrochemical inertia and high vulnerability to external stimuli.Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Associate editor not assigned [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Forecasting future water demands has always been of great complexity, especially in the case of tourist cities which are subject to population fluctuations. In addition to the usual uncertainties related to climate and weather variables, daily water consumption in Mashhad, a tourist city is affected by a significant different fluctuation. Mashhad is the second most populous city in Iran. The number of tourists visiting the city is subject to national and religious events, which are respectively based on the Iranian formal calendar (secular calendar) and the Arabic Hijri calendar (Islamic religious calendar). Since religious events move relative to the secular calendar, the coincidence of the two calendars results in peculiar wild fluctuations in population. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are chosen to predict water demand under such conditions. Three types of ANNs, feedforward back-propagation, cascade-forward and radial basis functions, are developed. In order to track how population fluctuation propagates in the model and affects the outputs, two sets of inputs are considered. For the first set, based on evaluating several repetitions, a typical combination of variables is selected as inputs, whereas for the second set, new calendar-based variables are included to decrease the effect of population fluctuations; the results are then compared using some performance criteria. A large number of runs are also conducted to assess the impact of random initialization of the weights and biases of networks and also the effect of calendar-based inputs on improvement of network performance. It is shown that, from the points of view of performance measures and unchanging outputs through numerous runs, the radial basis network that is trained by patterns including calendar-based inputs can provide the best domestic water demand forecasting under population fluctuations.Editor D. Koutsoyiannis Associate editor E. Rozos [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The problem of estimation of suspended load carried by a river is an important topic for many water resources projects. Conventional estimation methods are based on the assumption of exact observations. In practice, however, a major source of natural uncertainty is due to imprecise measurements and/or imprecise relationships between variables. In this paper, using the Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) technique, a novel fuzzy regression model for imprecise response and crisp explanatory variables is presented. The investigated fuzzy regression model is applied to forecast suspended load by discharge based on two real-world datasets. The accuracy of the proposed method is compared with two well-known parametric fuzzy regression models, namely, the fuzzy least-absolutes model and the fuzzy least-squares model. The comparison results reveal that the MARS-fuzzy regression model performs better than the other models in suspended load estimation for the particular datasets. This comparison is done based on four goodness-of-fit criteria: the criterion based on similarity measure, the criterion based on absolute errors and the two objective functions of the fuzzy least-absolutes model and the fuzzy least-squares model. The proposed model is general and can be used for modelling natural phenomena whose available observations are reported as imprecise rather than crisp.Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Associate editor H. Aksoy [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We investigated the isotopic composition of the Urumqi River and documented seasonal variability attributable to the mixing of various flow sources. Next, we applied these isotopic signals to partition the sources and studied their temporal variability in summer. The isotope hydrology separation results indicated that groundwater is the dominant streamflow source (approximately 62.7%) in the Urumqi River. Precipitation is an important source for the Urumqi River; approximately 19.1–20.7% of the runoff came from precipitation during summer and early autumn. In summer, approximately 21.1% of the runoff is derived from glacial meltwater. In summer, with the increasing distance to the glacier front, groundwater accounts for a larger and larger percentage of the river water, and the contributions of precipitation and glacial meltwater gradually diminish. Throughout 2012, the proportions of precipitation and glacial meltwater in the streamflow were 17.6% and 14.7%, respectively, and only 5% of the streamflow was derived from snowmelt.Editor Z. W. Kundzewicz; Associate editor not assigned [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2013, the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) launched the hydrological decade 2013–2022 with the theme “Panta Rhei: Change in Hydrology and Society”. The decade recognizes the urgency of hydrological research to understand and predict the interactions of society and water, to support sustainable water resource use under changing climatic and environmental conditions. This paper reports on the first Panta Rhei biennium 2013–2015, providing a comprehensive resource that describes the scope and direction of Panta Rhei. We bring together the knowledge of all the Panta Rhei working groups, to summarize the most pressing research questions and how the hydrological community is progressing towards those goals. We draw out interconnections between different strands of research, and reflect on the need to take a global view on hydrology in the current era of human impacts and environmental change. Finally, we look back to the six driving science questions identified at the outset of Panta Rhei, to quantify progress towards those aims.Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Associate editor not assigned [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

“Panta Rhei – Everything Flows” is the science plan for the International Association of Hydrological Sciences scientific decade 2013–2023. It is founded on the need for improved understanding of the mutual, two-way interactions occurring at the interface of hydrology and society, and their role in influencing future hydrologic system change. It calls for strategic research effort focused on the delivery of coupled, socio-hydrologic models. In this paper we explore and synthesize opportunities and challenges that socio-hydrology presents for data-driven modelling. We highlight the potential for a new era of collaboration between data-driven and more physically-based modellers that should improve our ability to model and manage socio-hydrologic systems. Crucially, we approach data-driven, conceptual and physical modelling paradigms as being complementary rather than competing, positioning them along a continuum of modelling approaches that reflects the relative extent to which hypotheses and/or data are available to inform the model development process.EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis; ASSOCIATE EDITOR not assigned [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports on bringing innovation and improving impact assessment in journal publications in hydrology. Editors of several journals in the field of hydrology met during the Assembly of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) in Prague, Czech Republic in June 2015 to review the current status of the journals and the publication process.

The world's freshwater resources are already under severe stress. The anticipated population increase and global climate change raise further concerns on the future. Transboundary and other shared waters have been the sources of numerous conflicts between the countries and communities sharing them, and there are fears that many of these shared basins will be hotspots for violent conflicts in this century. Proper planning and management of these shared waters will play a key role in resolving future water problems and conflicts. Despite the many existing legal frameworks and bilateral/multilateral agreements, tremendous challenges remain in managing the shared waters. These challenges have scientific, political, economic, environmental, social, cultural, racial, religious, linguistic and other facets. This study discusses the human side of water planning, management and conflicts. The positive and negative effects of water planning and management on human life are presented, with particular emphasis on human behaviour. How these effects, in turn, can shape our perception of water planning and management and motivate us towards specific agenda(s) is also discussed. The water dispute in an inter-state river basin (the Cauvery River basin) in south India is chosen as a representative for discussion. It is argued that studying the transactions between humans and water-related activities should be an integral part of water research. The field of 'hydropsychology' is proposed for this kind of study, and a few ideas are also presented for making fundamental advances. Citation Sivakumar, B. (2011) Hydropsychology: the human side of water research. Hydrol. Sci. J. 56(4), 719-732. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water conflicts, such as the one in the Everglades, Florida, USA, are complex and dynamic, and there is no theory that yet provides a comprehensive and sufficient explanation for when and how science may be more or less effective. Using both the literature and the water conflict in the Everglades, it is argued that science is most influential in political negotiations when it is created with, not for, stakeholders. The stakeholder negotiators need to know, give feedback on, and eventually vet all stages of the scientific process, which is generating data and possible solutions for them. Such close cooperation is not easy, however. Each group has different goals, jargons, objects to represent phenomena and concepts, and different procedures for working through problems. This paper argues that the political negotiations and technical groups need to jointly create 'a common playing field,' with a shared purpose supported by a negotiated set of concepts, 'boundary objects,' and procedures and norms that they use to coordinate their work. Citation Fuller, B. (2011) Enabling problem-solving between science and politics in water conflicts: impasses and breakthroughs in the Everglades, Florida, USA. Hydrol. Sci. J. 56(4), 576-587. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]