Twenty-three unsolved problems in hydrology (UPH)–a community perspective

• Published in: Hydrological Sciences Journal
• Main Authors: Blöschl G., Bierkens M.F.P., Chambel A., Cudennec C., Destouni G., Fiori A., Kirchner J.W., McDonnell J.J., Savenije H.H.G., Sivapalan M., Stumpp C., Toth E., Volpi E., Carr G., Lupton C., Salinas J., Széles B., Viglione A., Aksoy H., Allen S.T., Amin A., Andréassian V., Arheimer B., Aryal S.K., Baker V., Bardsley E., Barendrecht M.H., Bartosova A., Batelaan O., Berghuijs W.R., Beven K., Blume T., Bogaard T., Borges de Amorim P., Böttcher M.E., Boulet G., Breinl K., Brilly M., Brocca L., Buytaert W., Castellarin A., Castelletti A., Chen X., Chen Y., Chifflard P., Claps P., Clark M.P., Collins A.L., Croke B., Dathe A., David P.C., de Barros F.P.J., de Rooij G., Di Baldassarre G., Driscoll J.M., Duethmann D., Dwivedi R., Eris E., Farmer W.H., Feiccabrino J., Ferguson G., Ferrari E., Ferraris S., Fersch B., Finger D., Foglia L., Fowler K., Gartsman B., Gascoin S., Gaume E., Gelfan A., Geris J., Gharari S., Gleeson T., Glendell M., Gonzalez Bevacqua A., González-Dugo M.P., Grimaldi S., Gupta A.B., Guse B., Han D., Hannah D., Harpold A., Haun S., Heal K., Helfricht K., Herrnegger M., Hipsey M., Hlaváciková H., Hohmann C., Holko L., Hopkinson C., Hrachowitz M., Illangasekare T.H., Inam A., Innocente C., Istanbulluoglu E., Jarihani B., Kalantari Z., Kalvans A., Khanal S., Khatami S., Kiesel J., Kirkby M., Knoben W., Kochanek K., Kohnová S., Kolechkina A., Krause S., Kreamer D., Kreibich H., Kunstmann H., Lange H., Liberato M.L.R., Lindquist E., Link T., Liu J., Loucks D.P., Luce C., Mahé G., Makarieva O., Malard J., Mashtayeva S., Maskey S., Mas-Pla J., Mavrova-Guirguinova M., Mazzoleni M., Mernild S., Misstear B.D., Montanari A., Müller-Thomy H., Nabizadeh A., Nardi F., Neale C., Nesterova N., Nurtaev B., Odongo V.O., Panda S., Pande S., Pang Z., Papacharalampous G., Perrin C., Pfister L., Pimentel R., Polo M.J., Post D., Prieto Sierra C., Ramos M.-H., Renner M., Reynolds J.E., Ridolfi E., Rigon R., Riva M., Robertson D.E., Rosso R., Roy T., Sá J.H.M., Salvadori G., Sandells M., Schaefli B., Schumann A., Scolobig A., Seibert J., Servat E., Shafiei M., Sharma A., Sidibe M., Sidle R.C., Skaugen T., Smith H., Spiessl S.M., Stein L., Steinsland I., Strasser U., Su B., Szolgay J., Tarboton D., Tauro F., Thirel G., Tian F., Tong R., Tussupova K., Tyralis H., Uijlenhoet R., van Beek R., van der Ent R.J., van der Ploeg M., Van Loon A.F., van Meerveld I., van Nooijen R., van Oel P.R., Vidal J.-P., von Freyberg J., Vorogushyn S., Wachniew P., Wade A.J., Ward P., Westerberg I.K., White C., Wood E.F., Woods R., Xu Z., Yilmaz K.K., Zhang Y.
• Other Authors: Ege Üniversitesi
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor and Francis Ltd. 2019
• Subjects: hydrology; interdisciplinary; knowledge gaps; research agenda; science questions; Bergen; Canada; Clayton; Ege; Flinders; Magallanes; New Zealand; Norway; Polska; Reno; Sav’; Splinter; Yakutsk; Iceland; permafrost; Reykjavik University
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/11454/24848; https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2019.1620507

This paper is the outcome of a community initiative to identify major unsolved scientific problems in hydrology motivated by a need for stronger harmonisation of research efforts. The procedure involved a public consultation through online media, followed by two workshops through which a large number of potential science questions were collated, prioritised, and synthesised. In spite of the diversity of the participants (230 scientists in total), the process revealed much about community priorities and the state of our science: a preference for continuity in research questions rather than radical departures or redirections from past and current work. Questions remain focused on the process-based understanding of hydrological variability and causality at all space and time scales. Increased attention to environmental change drives a new emphasis on understanding how change propagates across interfaces within the hydrological system and across disciplinary boundaries. In particular, the expansion of the human footprint raises a new set of questions related to human interactions with nature and water cycle feedbacks in the context of complex water management problems. We hope that this reflection and synthesis of the 23 unsolved problems in hydrology will help guide research efforts for some years to come. © 2019, © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Technische Universität Wien Università degli Studi di Padova University of Saskatchewan, U of S Technische Universiteit Delft, TU Delft Istanbul Teknik Üniversitesi Università degli Studi Roma Tre ETH Università di Bologna, UNIBO Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, INRA: UMR College of Natural Resources and Sciences, Humboldt State University, CNRS University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, UIUC Universiteit Utrecht, UU School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, SAS University of Arizona, UA Princeton University, Princeton Flinders University Università degli Studi di Torino, UNITO University of Saskatchewan, U of S University of Victoria, UVic National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Rothamsted Research Université du Luxembourg University of Leeds Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam - Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum GFZ, GFZ Imperial College London Universitat de Girona, UdG Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries Saint Petersburg State University, SPbU Université de Lausanne, UNIL University of Western Australia, UWA Shiraz University Cornell University Universitetet i Bergen, UiB Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University University of Waikato Università del Salento Russian Academy of Sciences, RAS Princeton University, Princeton University of Bristol Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering, CESE Lunds Universitet Chinese Academy of Sciences, CAS Augsburg University Latvijas Universitate Uppsala Universitet University of Washington, UW University of Edinburgh McGill University, McGill University of Birmingham University of Nevada, Las Vegas, UNLV Université de Montpellier, UM University of California, Davis University of Aberdeen Slovenská Akadémia Vied, SAV Univerza v Ljubljani, UL Universidad de Córdoba Polska Akademia Nauk Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, UFSC University of Melbourne Sun Yat-sen University, SYSU Ege Üniversitesi Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, KIT Australian National University, ANU Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Ã?AW University of Lethbridge, U of L Università della Calabria, UNICAL Boise State University U.S. Geological Survey, USGS Lancaster University College of Natural Resources and Sciences, Humboldt State University, CNRS Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung, UFZ Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Southern California European Research Council, ERC Austrian Science Fund, FWF DK W1219-N28 European Geosciences Union, EGU aInstitute of Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management, Vienna University of Technology, Austria; bDepartment of Physical Geography, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands; cInstitute of Earth Sciences, Department of Geosciences, University of Évora, Portugal; dAgrocampus Ouest, INRA, UMR 1069 SAS, Rennes, France; eDepartment of Physical Geography, Stockholm University, Sweden; fDepartment of Engineering, Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy; gDepartment of Environmental Systems Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland; hSwiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), Birmensdorf, Switzerland; iGlobal Institute for Water Security, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada; jDepartment of Water Management, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands; kDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, USA; lDepartment of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, USA; mInstitute for Soil Physics and Rural Water Management, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria; nDepartment of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering (DICAM), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy; oIAHS Ltd, CEH Wallingford, Wallingford, UK; pDepartment of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering (DIATI), Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy; qDepartment of Civil Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey; rDepartment of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry (TESAF), University of Padova, Padova, Italy; sHYCAR Research Unit, Irstea, Antony, France; tSwedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), Norrköping, Sweden; uCSIRO Land and Water, Canberra, Australia; vDepartment of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA; wFaculty of Science and Engineering, -- University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand; xNational Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT), College of Science & Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia; yLancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK; zGFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Hydrology Section, Potsdam, Germany; aaGraduate Program in Environmental Engineering (PPGEA), Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Florianópolis, Brazil; bbGeochemistry & Isotope Biogeochemistry Group, Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research (IOW), Warnemünde, Germany; ccCESBIO, Université de Toulouse, CNES/CNRS/IRD/INRA/UPS, Toulouse, France; ddDepartment of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geodesy, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia; eeNational Research Council, Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection, Perugia, Italy; ffDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK; ggDepartment of Electronics, Information, and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy; hhCenter for Water Resources and Environment, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China; iiSchool of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China; jjCollege of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University, Nanjing, China; kkDepartment of Geography, Philipps-University Marburg, Marburg, Germany; llCentre for Hydrology and Coldwater Laboratory, University of Saskatchewan at Canmore, Canmore, Alberta, Canada; mmSustainable Agriculture Sciences Department, Rothamsted Research, North Wyke, Okehampton, Devon, UK; nnFenner School of Environment and Society, and Mathematical Sciences Institute, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia; ooDepartment of Water Resources, Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Ås, Norway; ppSonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; qqHelmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, UFZ, Soil System Science Dept., Halle (Saale), Germany; rrCentre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS), Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; ssWater Mission Area, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO, USA; ttDepartment of Civil Engineering, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey; uuU.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO, USA; vvDepartment of Water Resources Engineering, Lund University, Lund, Sweden; wwDepartment of Civil, Geological and Environmental Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada; xxDepartment of Computer Engineering, Modeling, Electronics, and Systems Science (DIMES), University of Calabria, Rende, Italy; yyDIST Politecnico and University of Turin, Turin, Italy; zzInstitute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany; aaaSchool of Science and Engineering, Reykjavik University, Reykjavik, Iceland; bbbSustainability Institute and Forum (SIF), Reykjavik University, Reykjavik, Iceland; cccDepartment of Land Air and Water Resources, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA; dddDepartment of Infrastructure Engineering, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia; eeeWater Problems Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences (IWP RAS), Moscow, Russia; fffDepartment of Geotechnics, Environment, Natural Hazards and Earth Sciences, IFSTTAR, Nantes, France; gggFaculty of Geography, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia; hhhNorthern Rivers Institute, School of Geosciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK; iiiSchool of Environment and Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada; jjjDepartment of Civil Engineering and School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada; kkkEnvironmental and Biochemical Sciences Group, The James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK; lllUndergraduate Programme in Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil; mmmIFAPA, Agricultural and Fisheries Research Institute of Andalusia, Córdoba, Spain; nnnDepartment of Innovation in Biological, Agri-food and Forest systems (DIBAF), Tuscia University, Viterbo, Italy; oooDepartment of Civil Engineering, MNIT Jaipur, India; pppDepartment of Civil Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK; qqqSchool of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston. Birmingham, UK; rrrNatural Resources and Environmental Science Department, University of Nevada, Reno, USA; sssInstitute for Modelling Hydraulic and Environmental Systems, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany; tttSchool of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK; uuuInstitute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research (IGF), Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), Innsbruck, Austria; vvvInstitute for Hydrology and Water Management, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria; wwwUWA School of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia; xxxSlovak Hydrometeorological Institute, Department of Hydrological Forecasts and Warnings, Bratislava, Slovakia; yyyWegener Center for Climate and Global Change, University of Graz, Austria; zzzInstitute of Hydrology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia; aaaaDepartment of Geography, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Canada; bbbbCenter for Experimental Study of Subsurface Environmental Processes, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA; ccccDepartment of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University, Québec, Canada; ddddCivil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA; eeeeSustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, QLD, Australia; ffffBolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden; ggggFaculty of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia; hhhhFutureWater, Wageningen, The Netherlands; iiiiLeibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Department of Ecosystem Research, Berlin, Germany; jjjjSchool of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK; kkkkInstitute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland; llllDepartment of Land and Water Resources Management, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovakia; mmmmDepartment of Geoscience, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA; nnnnInstitute of Geography, University of Augsburg, Germany; ooooDepartment Terrestrial Ecology, Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Ås, Norway; ppppInstituto Dom Luiz (IDL), Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa and Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD), Vila Real, Portugal; qqqqSchool of Public Service, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA; rrrrWater Resources Program, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA; ssssSchool of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China; ttttCivil and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA; uuuuUS Forest Service, Boise, ID, USA; vvvvHSM, IRD, CNRS, Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France; wwwwMelnikov Permafrost Institute, Yakutsk; St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia; xxxxL. Gumilev Eurasian National University, Department of Geography, Astana, Kazakhstan; yyyyDepartment of Water Science and Engineering, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Delft, The Netherlands; zzzzGAiA-Geocamb, University of Girona, and Catalan Institute for Water Research, Spain; aaaaaUniversity of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, Sofia, Bulgaria; bbbbbNansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, Bergen, Norway; cccccDepartment of Environmental Sciences, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Sogndal, Norway; dddddUniversidad de Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile; eeeeeGeophysical Institute, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; fffffSchool of Engineering, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland; gggggWater Engineering Department, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran; hhhhhWater Resources Research and Documentation Centre (WARREDOC), University for Foreigners of Perugia, Perugia, Italy; iiiiiRobert B. Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, USA; jjjjjState Hydrological Institute, St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia; kkkkkFreelance consultant, Frechen, Germany; lllllDepartment of Soil and Water Conservation, Faculty of Agriculture, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, West Bengal, India; mmmmmInstitute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; nnnnnDepartment of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Zographou, Greece; oooooLuxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, Department ‘Environmental Research and Innovation’, ‘Catchment and eco-hydrology’ research group, Belvaux, Luxembourg; pppppFaculty of Science, Technology and Communication, University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg; qqqqqAndalusian Institute for Earth System Research, University of Cordoba, Spain; rrrrrEnvironmental Hydraulics Institute “IHCantabria”, Universidad de Cantabria, Santander, Spain; sssssBiospheric Theory and Modelling Group, Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry Jena, Germany; tttttUniversità di Trento/DICAM/CUDAM, Trento, Italy; uuuuuDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy; vvvvvCSIRO Land and Water, Clayton, VIC, Australia; wwwwwDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA; xxxxxDepartment of Mathematics and Physics, University of Salento, Lecce, Italy; yyyyyCORES Science and Engineering Limited, Burnopfield, UK; zzzzzFaculty of Geosciences and Environment, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; aaaaaaInstitute of Hydrology, -- In hydrology, the small number of outrageous hypotheses may be partly related to the funding system and the culture of reviewing, where reviewers generally require solid, proven methodologies in project proposals, rather than open-ended questions and speculative hypotheses. Similar observations apply to the review process of papers where the chances for a potentially transformative paper to be published are generally low (Koutsoyiannis et al. 2016). Perhaps, we should be more generous in reviewing such proposals and papers, giving outrageous hypotheses the benefit of the doubt. There are already a number of high-risk/high-gain initiatives around the world, such as the ERC (European Research Council) Grants and the MacArthur Fellows Program, that encourage and fund this type of research. Both programmes target people of exceptional creativity whose work would benefit from greater freedom and support. -- We would like to thank the members of the IAHS, EGU, AGU and IAH for supporting this initiative. The LinkedIn group and overall secretariat was hosted by the IAHS, the Splinter meeting by EGU and the Vienna Catchment Science Symposium by the Vienna Doctoral Programme on Water Resource Systems (DK W1219-N28) funded by the Austrian Science Funds (FWF). -- -- --