At the IUGG in Prague in July 2015 Zbigniew W. Kundzewicz stood down as editor of the Hydrological Sciences Journal after 18 years in charge. 

Address to the retiring editor of HSJ Zbyszek Kundzewicz by Demetris Koutsoyiannis.

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In July 2015 Attilio Castellarin joined Demetris Koutsoyiannis and Mike Acreman as co-editor of Hydrological Sciences Journal.

Welcome, Attilio, as HSJ Co-Editor by Demetris Koutsoyiannis.

The IAHS Bureau in Gothenburg (July 2013) agreed to gradually renew the panel of the Co-Editors of Hydrological Sciences Journal (HSJ) and increase their number from two (Zbyszek Kundzewicz and Demetris Koutsoyiannis), to three. Since April 2014, Mike Acreman was appointed as new Co-Editor, while in April 2015 Zbyszek Kundzewicz retired, after 18 years of leading HSJ.

The IAHS Bureau in Prague (June 2015) unanimously accepted an earlier proposal by the IAHS Ltd Board meeting (February 2015) that the new HSJ Co-Editor, who would replace Zbyszek, would be Attilio Castellarin.

Attilio is Associate Professor of Water Engineering and Hydrology at the University of Bologna. He received his Bachelor and Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering (major in Environmental Engineering) with honours in 1996 from the University of Bologna and his PhD in Water Engineering in 2001 from the Polytechnic of Milan. Since 2006 he teaches Hydraulic Infrastructures, Hydrological Modelling, and Water Resources Engineering and Management to undergraduate and graduate students of the School of Engineering and Architecture at the University of Bologna. He collaborates with UNESCO/IHE, USGS, TUW (Austria) and Tufts University (USA) within their training and scientific research programmes. He is author and co-author of 45 papers on journals indexed in WoS and Scopus. His research interests include hydrological applications for environmental and civil engineering: analysis of extreme hydrological events; hydrological predictions in ungauged watersheds; sustainable water resources management; anthropogenic and climate variability effects on hydrological processes; one- and two-dimensional hydraulic modelling; flood-hazard and flood-risk assessment and mapping. He has served on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Hydrology (winner of the Associate Editor award in 2013) and Water Resources Research. He has also been a very active and responsible reviewer of HSJ.

Attilio’s scientific and teaching achievements, his successful editorial career and good reputation in other, top quality hydrological journals, as well as his enthusiastic acceptance of the HSJ Co-Editor position, accompanied with full and unreserved commitment to HSJ, are the first signs of a bright future in our collaboration and in leadership of the journal. His young age signifies the IAHS policy to engage the young generation of hydrologists into its activities, a policy also manifest in its new decade-long “Panta Rhei” initiative.

I have no doubt that the three Co-Editors together will achieve much for the benefit of HSJ and the international hydrological community.

Welcome, Attilio as HJS Co-Editor and good luck in your new capacity.

Research to operations (and vice versa) in hydrological forecasting

Contributed by Maria-Helena Ramos, Fredrik Wetterhall, Andy Wood, Julie Demargne, Qingyun Duan, Liz Stephens and Massimiliano Zappa.

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The spatial dimensions of water management - Redistribution of benefits and risks. 

The conference brings together experts from different countries and expertise to present their research ideas and discuss challenging questions of modern water management. This meeting, part of the series of IWRM conferences organized by ICWRS series is focused on spatial aspects of water management.

Submit your abstract now!   
Abstract submission is available now using pdf form via the following website:

http://iahs-rub.hydrology.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/node/9

The submission will be possible until October 15th 2015.

Registration for the conference will open in September 2015.

Andreas Schumann

Chair of the scientific steering committee

7th International Water Resources Management Conference of ICWRS, Bochum, Germany, 18-20 May 2016

The retirement of Dr Cate Gardner as Manager of IAHS Press was announced to Members at the Plenary held at the recent IAHS General Assembly in Prague on Friday June 26th, 2015. This provided an appropriate occasion for the Association to convey their thanks and appreciation to Cate for her long, loyal and valuable service to IAHS and to recognise her outstanding contribution to the Association over many years.  

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Congratulations to the recipients of the International Hydrology Prize (Dooge medal and Volker medal) and the Tison award for 2015!

 
THE 2015 INTERNATIONAL HYDROLOGY PRIZE MEDALISTS

Dooge medal: Mary Hill (USA)

Left to Right: Christophe Cudennec (Secretary General, IAHS), Anil Mishra (UNESCO), Hubert Savenije (President, IAHS), Mary Hill (Dooge Medal Recipient), Paul Pilon (WMO).

Volker medal: Pierre Hubert (France)

Left to Right: Anil Mishra (UNESCO), Hubert Savenije (President, IAHS), Pierre Hubert (Volker Medal Recipient), Paul Pilon (WMO).

Awarded during the IAHS Plenary at IUGG 2015 in Prague, Czech Republic (26th June 2015).

The International Hydrology Prize is awarded annually by IAHS, with UNESCO and WMO, to two people who have made an outstanding contribution to hydrological science.

Nominations for the Prize are made by National Committees and forwarded to the Secretary General for consideration by the Nomination Committee. The Committee consists of the President and a Vice-President of IAHS and representatives of UNESCO and WMO.

Two medals are awarded under the International Hydrology Prize: the Dooge medal and the Volker medal. Both medals are intended to distinguish outstanding achievements by hydrological scientists but with a different focus. The Dooge medal is aimed at fundamental contributions to the science of hydrology, whereas the Volker medal is aimed at outstanding applications of hydrological science for the benefit of society at large.

http://iahs.info/About-IAHS/Competition--Events/International-Hydrology-Prize.do

THE 2015 TISON AWARD PAPER

The 2015 Tison Award was presented to A. Maltese and F. Capodici.

Maltese, A., Bates, P.D., Capodici, F., Cannarozzo, M., Ciraolo, G. and La Loggia, G., 2013. Critical analysis of thermal inertia approaches for surface soil water content retrieval. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 58 (5), 1144–1161. doi:10.1080/02626667.2013.802322

Left to Right: Christophe Cudennec (Secretary General, IAHS), Hubert Savenije (President, IAHS), Antonino Maltese (Tison Award Recipient), Zbigniew W. Kundzewicz (Retired Co-editor, HSJ). Photo courtesy of C. Neale.

The paper is available open access: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02626667.2013.802322

The IAHS Tison Award, established in 1982, aims to promote excellence in research by young hydrologists. The Award is granted for an outstanding paper published by IAHS in a period of two years previous to the deadline for nominations.

http://iahs.info/About-IAHS/Competition--Events/Tison-Award.do

In these times of scientific controversy on the issue of scales in hydrology, the IAHS Ultimate Frisbee tournament held during the 2015 IUGG General Assembly in Prague was expected to shed new light on this debate, by pitching downscalers against upscalers. Twenty players took part in the match on the field of the Vyšehrad close to the Congress Centre.

There was no observation round in this match and the upscalers quickly took the advantage after a few minutes. Their very detailed representation of the field thanks to a 10 cm resolution LiDAR data and to drone airborne measurements was very helpful to identify the best trajectories by applying least-energy principles. In contrast, the downscalers started with a large 10x10 km² scale and it took some time for them to adapt to the actual limits of the field and to find the best pathways to score. After trying a few statistical approaches, they opted for a deterministic one and managed to come back to 4 goals to 5. This was the time the upscalers chose to define efficient adaptation strategies, which resulted in five new successive goals. The golden Frisbee did not change the outcome of the match and the upscalers won.

After the match, the downscalers complained that they did not have recent enough data to cope with extreme situations. A more detailed analysis of the statistical parameters of the match showed that the team of upscalers was in fact a mix of upscalers and downscalers, and that the variety of experiences and points of view within the team strongly contributed to finding efficient solutions. This is a matter for thought before the next Ultimate Frisbee game planned in two years’ time in South Africa at the next IUGG Assembly.      

The participants of the Ultimate Frisbee game. The downscalers team: G. di Baldassare, A. Castellarin, J. Fabre, C. Furusho, S. Grimaldi, P. Hublart, F. Raynaud, A. Viglione, and M. Zappa. The upscalers team: H. Aksoy, M. Courbariaux, R. A. Montero, F. Neugirg, I. Pechlivanidis, C. Perrin, P. Pilon, D. Ruelland, A. Rücker, and G. Thirel.

Three volumes of proceedings of the papers presented in IAHS sessions at IUGG2015 are available open access on the PIAHS website: JH1, HS01 and HS02

A Need for Action to Develop Water Resources Management Systems

by the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS)

We, the delegates to the conference of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences in Prague, June 20-26, 2015 are deeply concerned by the water problems humanity is experiencing with increasing frequency and severity and express the following concerns and recommendations. The hydrosphere is experiencing a global water crisis caused by uneven freshwater availability in space and time, overexploitation, environmental degradation and the more frequent occurrence of floods and droughts.

We call upon all local, regional and national governments and urge them to develop effective solutions to the water crisis by developing effective water resources management systems. In order to address problems of freshwater availability and supply, the full spectrum of technical, organisational, economic, political, legal and social approaches should be considered, and implemented as needed. In order to address flood risks, a holistic approach of integrated flood risk management should be adopted that considers all phases of the disaster cycle – mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.

We also call upon members of the international scientific community and urge them to develop practical and implementable methods and techniques to support adaptation of water resources management systems to the current and future challenges. Adaptation of water resources management systems should build on observed evidence and rigorous system understanding. An improved understanding of hydrological processes is therefore needed, in particular at the local scale, and put into the context of broader river basin and groundwater issues.

Finally, we call upon the research funding agencies at both national and international levels and urge them to provide funding that is commensurate with the challenges of the global water crisis. Enhanced funding is needed to improve the understanding of hydrological processes at all scales. Fundamental research is equally important as applied research, and is equally likely to become societally relevant, albeit over longer time scales. 

Adopted by acclamation, in the city of Prague, Czech Republic, on this 26th day of June 2015.

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