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The Oceania region has often been overlooked in fundamental hydrological research owing to assumptions that cultural complexities hinder such efforts. However, this perspective is somewhat naïve. Substantial evidence demonstrates that Pacific Islanders actively engage in research, contributing both local Indigenous knowledge and expert capabilities in "island hydrology." Numerous projects and publications by Pacific Island scholars showcase this expertise. To enhance self-reliance in smaller Pacific nations, it is crucial to improve access to advanced hydrology education and secure funding to support it. Overcoming these challenges is essential to unlocking the full potential of future hydrological research in the Pacific Islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent developments in tree-ring research offer great potential for reconstructing past climate changes; determining the frequencies of natural hazards; and assessing the availability of freshwater resources over timescales that extend well into the pre-instrumental period. Here, we review the state of dendrochronological research in the Himalaya and outline future directions for tree-ring-based hydrological reconstructions in a region that has a pressing societal need to understand the causes and consequences of past, present and future changes in the hydrological cycle. We used 'tree ring' and 'Himalaya' as keywords to identify scholarly articles from the Web of Science that were published between 1994 and 2022. The resulting 173 publications were separated by their spatial coverage into the western, central and eastern Himalaya, as well as their scientific purpose (e.g. reconstructing growth-climate relationships, temperature, precipitation, streamflow, floods, droughts, etc.). Our analysis shows that dendrochronological research in the Himalaya primarily focused on understanding growth-climate relationships using annual tree-ring widths measurements obtained for coniferous species, and their application in climate reconstructions. Reconstructions of hydrological processes such as streamflows, and extremes such as glacial and landslide lake outburst floods, have received less attention. Recent advances in dendrochronology, including blue intensity (BI), quantitative wood anatomy (QWA), and tree-ring stable isotopes (TRSI) should be combined to improve the resolution and accuracy of hydrological reconstructions in all parts of the Himalaya. Such studies may allow us to better understand the effects of climate change and the Himalayan water resources for its lowland surroundings. They may also facilitate decision-making processes for mitigating the impacts of climate change on natural hazards, and for better managing water resources in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We thank the commentators for discussing their viewpoints on the subject; the majority converge with our ideas, while a few others need clarity and which we have responded to. We also applaud the works of the commentators in Oceania Region (OR), especially the decades of work by Professors Terry and Weber, which surely has improved scientific and societal research education in the OR. Here we respond to the commentary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an assessment of hydrological research activity conducted in the Oceania Region. Literature from three databases (Web of Science (WOS), Scopus, and Google Scholar) was collected and analysed. Results show large gaps in the variety of themes and poor collaborative efforts between regional water specialists. Results also suggest that local specialists potentially lack the ability to conduct quality hydrological research or that, due to the region's developing status, more focus has been placed on project-based objectives rather than building a body of research. A solution could be the development of a self-reliant base for conducting hydrological research by empowering and improving capabilities of local citizens. Firstly, an overhaul of organization policies regarding the introduction of research and performance monitoring is needed. Secondly, education in hydrology must be improved to suit local capabilities while addressing the complex socio-cultural environment with transdisciplinary measures. This assessment could benefit the future management of hydrological services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim of the study: The city of Gdańsk faces changing climatic conditions that result in a higher frequency of extreme weather events. In response to the increasingly frequent appearance of flash floods, scientific research was carried out on changes in the probability of the occurrence of maximum daily precipitation in Gdańsk. The purpose of this paper is to show the role of hydrological research (science), decisions of local authorities and the engagement of residents in the process of adapting Gdańsk to climate change. Material and methods: The hydrological analysis was carried out using rainfall observations from the Gdańsk Rębiechowo station (1974-2021). Log-normal distribution was used as a statistical model for the precipitation probability distribution. To show the role of the city authorities’ decisions, the methodology developed and used by Gdańsk Water company for rainwater management was presented. To emphasize the importance of city residents in climate adaptation process, the methods adopted by city authorities to involve citizens in the advisory process are discussed, namely Civic Panels and the Gdańsk Climate Change Forum. Results and conclusions: The probability distributions of maximum precipitation for different periods were developed, showing a substantial increase of precipitation with a probability of p=1%. Consequently, changes were introduced in the rainwater management practices by the company Gdańsk Water. Being aware of rising flood hazard, Gdańsk City Hall has embraced a plan for adapting the city to climatic changes by 2030. The local authorities decided to involve citizens in the decision-making process. To this end, discussion panels were organized, and the Gdańsk Climate Change Forum was initiated.

Tipping bucket rain gauges (TBRs) continue to be one of the most widely used pieces of equipment for rainfall monitoring; they are frequently used for the calibration, validation, and downscaling of radar and remote sensing data, due to their major advantages—low cost, simplicity and low-energy consumption. Thus, many works have focused and continue to focus on their main disadvantage—measurement biases (mainly in wind and mechanical underestimations). However, despite arduous scientific effort, calibration methodologies are not frequently implemented by monitoring networks' operators or data users, propagating bias in databases and in the different applications of such data, causing uncertainty in the modeling, management, and forecasting in hydrological research, mainly due to a lack of knowledge. Within this context, this work presents a review of the scientific advances in TBR measurement uncertainties, calibration, and error reduction strategies from a hydrological point of view, by describing different rainfall monitoring techniques, summarizing TBR measurement uncertainties, focusing on calibration and error reduction strategies, discussing the state of the art and providing future perspectives of the technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article outlines the development of water resources management and research in hydrology in Slovakia in the last century when the centralised water resources planning provided a robust framework for the development of hydrological research. We first present facts about the organisation of research in hydrology from 1948 to 1990, which dealt with various problems of practical relevance. Experimental research and its international outreach in the collaborative programs of the Danube countries or the UNESCO water programmes are described. Then, the main achievements related to experimental hydrological research in two small research catchments with long histories of operation, the Mošteník Brook and the Bystrianka Creek catchments, are presented. Short biographies of researchers who significantly contributed to the overall development of water management or hydrological research in small catchment in Slovakia are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Openly accessible global-scale surface water chemistry datasets are urgently needed to detect widespread trends and problems, to help identify their possible solutions, and to determine critical spatial data gaps where more monitoring is required. Existing datasets are limited with respect to availability, sample size and/or sampling frequency, and geographic scope. These limitations inhibit researchers from tackling emerging transboundary water chemistry issues – for example, the detection and understanding of delayed recovery from freshwater acidification. Here, we begin to address these limitations by compiling the global Surface Water Chemistry (SWatCh) database, available on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6484939; Rotteveel and Heubach, 2021). We collect, clean, standardize, and aggregate open-access data provided by six national and international programs and research groups (United Nations Environment Programme; Hartmann et al., 2019; Environment and Climate Change Canada; the United States of America National Water Quality Monitoring Council; the European Environment Agency; and the United States National Science Foundation McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research Network) in order to compile a database containing information on sites, methods, and samples, and a geospatial information system (GIS) shapefile of site locations. We remove poor-quality data (e.g., values flagged as “suspect” or “rejected”), standardize variable naming conventions and units, and perform other data cleaning steps required for statistical analysis. The database contains water chemistry data for streams, rivers, canals, ponds, lakes, and reservoirs across seven continents, 24 variables, 33 722 sites, and over 5 million samples collected between 1960 and 2022. Similar to prior research, we identify critical spatial data gaps on the African and Asian continents, highlighting the need for more data collection and sharing initiatives in these areas, especially considering that freshwater ecosystems in these environs are predicted to be among the most heavily impacted by climate change. We identify the main challenges associated with compiling global databases – limited data availability, dissimilar sample collection and analysis methodology, and reporting ambiguity – and provide recommended solutions. By addressing these challenges and consolidating data from various sources into one standardized, openly available, high-quality, and transboundary database, SWatCh allows users to conduct powerful and robust statistical analyses of global surface water chemistry.

We thank the commentators for discussing their viewpoints on the subject; the majority converge with our ideas, while a few others need clarity and which we have responded to. We also applaud the works of the commentators in Oceania Region (OR), especially the decades of work by Professors Terry and Weber, which surely has improved scientific and societal research education in the OR. Here we respond to the commentary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The usefulness of small ( 10 km2) catchments has been repeatedly recognized during the recent history of hydrological research. This foreword to the special issue of Cuadernos de Investigación Geográfica – Geographical Research Letters devoted to long term hydrological research in small catchment in Europe highlights the main reasons for promoting the small catchment approach and revises its growing use, starting with the first catchment studies in Switzerland for management purposes, and followed by the development of more interdisciplinary research programs that used small catchments as field laboratories, long-term observatories, sites for method and model validation, and places for training young researchers. The volume includes nine contributions concerning studies carried out in long term monitoring sites in several European countries and aims at showing the relevance of the small catchment approach in hydrological research in Europe.

There is an uncontradicted consensus that experimental basin research plays an important role for the understanding of hydrological processes. Based on this, deepened knowledge concepts and hydrological models have been developed, which enable and support water management planning and decision making in all facets of hydrologically driven aspects like floods, climate change impact and environmental research. The following paper starts with a brief introduction to the history of hydrological monitoring and the initiation of hydrological research based on experimental watersheds. It highlights the international activities promoting and disseminating these kind of field research. Due to the personal involvement of the author, a special focus is given to the activities of the Euro-Mediterranean Network of Experimental and Representative Basins ERB and on the recent experimental basins inventory in Austria. As collection and provision of data form an important prerequisite for any further hydrological assessment, it is proposed that data sets and their providers in charge have to be cited and acknowledged in the research papers. These citations should gain the equivalent evaluation and ranking of paper citations and could stimulate the willingness for data provision. As a conclusion it can be stated that experimental basin research is carried out worldwide, but there is a lack of international communication among the stakeholders. A future development should therefore strengthen the communication platforms and foster extended data exchange.

Tipping bucket rain gauges (TBRs) continue to be one of the most widely used pieces of equipment for rainfall monitoring; they are frequently used for the calibration, validation, and downscaling of radar and remote sensing data, due to their major advantages—low cost, simplicity and low-energy consumption. Thus, many works have focused and continue to focus on their main disadvantage—measurement biases (mainly in wind and mechanical underestimations). However, despite arduous scientific effort, calibration methodologies are not frequently implemented by monitoring networks’ operators or data users, propagating bias in databases and in the different applications of such data, causing uncertainty in the modeling, management, and forecasting in hydrological research, mainly due to a lack of knowledge. Within this context, this work presents a review of the scientific advances in TBR measurement uncertainties, calibration, and error reduction strategies from a hydrological point of view, by describing different rainfall monitoring techniques, summarizing TBR measurement uncertainties, focusing on calibration and error reduction strategies, discussing the state of the art and providing future perspectives of the technology.

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 journals listed here.

[Objective] The aims of this study are to determine the appropriate DEM resolution for geomorphic hydrology research in a small watershed of the Loess Plateau, explore the applicability of scale effect curve and information entropy method, and provide a new perspective and approach for determining the appropriate resolution. [Methods] Taking Yanhe River Basin in the loess hilly region as the research area, ArcGIS was used to resample the original resolution DEM, obtain multiple groups of DEM with different resolutions, extract the terrain attribute values at corresponding scales, and draw two different scale effect curves (‘average slope-resolution ’and‘ local variance mean-resolution ’curves). Information entropy and mutual information entropy are introduced to distinguish suitable DEM resolution based on actual terrain. [Results] (1) In the Yanhe River Basin with complex terrain, the results obtained by different determination methods are different, while the results of local variance mean, information entropy and mutual information entropy are similar. (2) The results of determining the appropriate resolution by different terrain attributes are different. The appropriate resolution obtained by profile curvature and plane curvature is similar (the local mean variance is 15～20 m, and the information entropy and mutual information entropy are both 15 m), and the difference of the appropriate resolution obtained by slope is greater than that obtained by curvature (the local mean variance is 20～35 m). The results of information entropy and mutual information entropy are both 20 m. [Conclusion] Both local variance mean and information entropy method are suitable for DEM resolution determination in this area, and the appropriate DEM resolution in Yanhe River Basin is 15～20 m. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scotty Creek, Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada, has been the focus of hydrological research for nearly three decades. Over this period, field and modelling studies have generated new insights into the thermal and physical mechanisms governing the flux and storage of water in the wetland-dominated regions of discontinuous permafrost that characterises much of the Canadian and circumpolar subarctic. Research at Scotty Creek has coincided with a period of unprecedented climate warming, permafrost thaw, and resulting land cover transformations including the expansion of wetland areas and loss of forests. This paper (1) synthesises field and modelling studies at Scotty Creek, (2) highlights the key insights of these studies on the major water flux and storage processes operating within and between the major land cover types, and (3) provides insights into the rate and pattern of the permafrost-thaw-induced land cover change and how such changes will affect the hydrology and water resources of the study region.

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.

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