Hydrological Sciences Journal

Unravelling spatiotemporal patterns and interactions among climate variables, especially those related to hydroclimate, has always been an important task for geoscientists in general, and for hydro-climatologists in particular, mostly because it contributes significantly to better prediction and forecasting. However, complexities are intrinsic to natural systems, and for this reason the task of identifying patterns and interactions has always been challenging. Coupled with the existing challenges of global warming-induced climate change and human influence, these patterns and interactions become further unusual, unexpected and unpredictable. For instance, the influence of anthropogenic activities on the global water cycle has been significant and has been a major factor in changes in the global water balance. Research findings show that humans are responsible for more than half (57%) of seasonal surface water storage fluctuations. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) recently released a new water cycle diagram, showing humans as part of the hydrological cycle.

In addition, the human impact on water and carbon has been a trending topic in water resources studies in recent years, and is expected to help develop a better understanding of human–water interactions. Human interferences are often considered to behave linearly in hydrologic systems, and therefore, nonlinear feedback mechanisms present in those interferences are not properly represented in most of the studies. Currently, there is no systematic approach to quantify and assess the impact of human interventions on the global water cycle. Therefore there is a need to develop methods to identify, quantify and assess the impacts of human interventions on the global water cycle. With these challenging realities, hydrologists globally recognize that climatic and other hydro-climatological processes are intrinsically nonlinear and carry multi-scale features along with influences that are in general of time-varying nature.

This special issue is largely prompted by these realizations and an implied aspiration to develop a collection of advanced studies addressing the aforementioned issues. This Special Issue is expected to advance our understanding of these emerging hydro-climatic patterns, teleconnections, extreme events and human influence in a changing world for more accurate prediction or projection of their changes, especially on different spatial–time scales.

Guest editors:

Santosh Murlidhar Pingale
Affiliation: National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee
Email: [email protected]

Sanjay K. Jain
Affiliation: National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee
Email: [email protected]

Manoj Jain
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
[email protected]

Pedro Luiz Borges Chaffe
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
[email protected]

Jew Das
National Institute of Technology, Warangal
[email protected]

Ugur Ozturk
University of Potsdam
[email protected]

Sumit Sen
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
[email protected]

We invite authors to submit original research and review articles that aim to study new patterns, interaction and its variability, including its impact to climate extremes, development of new modelling paradigm capturing the impact of human interventions, development of new metrics/methods to quantify the changes induced by human interventions, improvements to existing methods to model the human component, and development of methods to understand the impact of human intervention on natural disasters, such as floods and droughts. Submissions of recent progress in observational, modelling and theoretical studies in relation to new connections interactions, especially those that apply advanced techniques to analyse the nonlinearity and multiscale nature of processes, are welcome. Through these multi-faceted explorations, we aspire to unravel complexities, foresee challenges and harness opportunities for a more sustainable water future.

When submitting your manuscript, please select the Special Issue: Emerging hydro-climatic dynamics and human–water interactions in a changing world.

Accepted papers will be assigned to regular issues as they are published and will also form a bespoke 'Collection'.

Instructions for AuthorsSubmit an Article