Last year's online HELPING conference was a success and will be repeated 26 Nov 2024 (13:00 - 16:00 CET) in a new format, addressing some of the suggestions made at the side event at EGU. We now have 29 Working Groups that will be gathered to highlight progress and discuss collaboration. Please complete this registration form to secure your spot at this year's event. If you cannot access the Google Form, please contact [email protected] and assistance will be offered to you.

Welcome to this edition of HSJ Digest, our bi-monthly synopsis of the latest news from Hydrological Sciences Journal. In this issue, in addition to our regular features, we reveal the winner of this year’s prestigious Tison Award. Read too about our key community paper setting out visions for the HELPING decade. And in our regular profile of HSJ people, meet Lottie Rundall, Editorial & Production Manager. Also find out more about LaTeX submissions, Openly HSJ, and much more.

Hydrological Sciences Journal is the official Journal of IAHS and provides a forum for original papers and for the exchange of information and views on significant developments in hydrology worldwide. It is published by Taylor & Francis and is available online and in print format. Keep abreast of our latest issues here, together with the Co-editors’ choice of featured articles.

The XII^th Scientific Assembly of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS 2025) will take place in Roorkee, India from 5 to 10 October 2025.

This important biennial event will provide an opportunity to communicate, exchange and project on all major topics in the hydrological sciences within the framework of sessions organized by all IAHS Commissions and Working Groups as well as the new HELPING Science for Solutions Decade.

This event will use a new forum program, to encourage scientific outlook and interactions between participants. Everyone will get an opportunity to speak in a Forum for the plenum. In addition, there will be fewer but more engaging presentations for the broad community of hydrological sciences, without any parallel sessions.

Key Innovations:

• Plenary Sessions Only – Please note that these are not invited talks. Plenary oral will be selected among the submitted abstracts only presenting challenging research. No parallel sessions ensure full audience engagement and better visibility of speakers.
• Guaranteed Oral Slot – All participants will present their work in the plenary, either through a 15-minute plenary oral presentation or a 1-minute forum oral.
• Visibility for Young Hydrologists – Early career scientists will have a secured platform for visibility.
• Poster with Video Interview – Participants opting for forum contributions will have their research showcased both in-person and via video interviews, shared on the IAHS YouTube channel.

Pre-conference events and training will be highlighted on the website when available.

It is jointly organized by the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, in coordination with the National Institute of Hydrology Roorkee, Irrigation Research Institute Roorkee and CBRI–Central Building Research Institute (CBRI) Roorkee.

More information will follow soon.

The new decade is evolving at speed with a lot of engagement and new collaborations across the globe. Some major achievements and upcoming initiatives are listed below.

The visionary paper

The final and corrected version of our joint visionary paper was published in August in the IAHS community Journal – well done all 128 authors! This paper is hopefully the first in a long list of publications as an outcome of our collaborative work during this decade.

How to cite:

Arheimer, B., Cudennec, C., Castellarin, A., Grimaldi, S., Heal, K. V., Lupton, C., … Xia, J. (2024). The IAHS Science for Solutions decade, with Hydrology Engaging Local People IN one Global world (HELPING). Hydrological Sciences Journal, 69(11), 1417–1435. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2024.2355202 

Paper collection for citations

We have now started to collect papers that mention the IAHS HELPING initiative in the Acknowledgement in a Publication List. We are looking forward to browsing through many of your papers there in the near future – please use the Google link on the IAHS/HELPING website to complete this form, or email [email protected] to add a HELPING paper to the list. For example, acknowledgements could be phrased as follows:

• This work was inspired by the IAHS initiative HELPING: “Hydrology Engaging with Local People IN one Global world”.
• This work contributes to the goals of the IAHS scientific decade of HELPING (2023-2032).  
• This work was performed as part of the IAHS HELPING Working Group on “name of WG”.

This will help with writing synthesis papers at a later stage when scientific results are accumulating and it will give our papers high visibility in the IAHS community and beyond.

Online conference with all Working Groups

Last year's online HELPING conference was a success and will be repeated 26 Nov 2024 (13-16 CET) in a new format, addressing some of the suggestions made at the side event at EGU. We now have 29 Working Groups that will be gathered to highlight progress and discuss collaboration. Watch out for the upcoming link in the IAHS enews and the IAHS Calendar, where you can also read about events organized by specific working groups.

HELPING tags in the Digital Water Globe

It is now possible to tag and filter items to relevant HELPING Working Groups (up to 6 per item) in the Digital Water Globe. This will facilitate outreach and finding results from case studies as well as finding peers for networking across the globe.

Open call for new HELPING Chair 

The IAHS Scientific Decades change Chair every second year and an open call will soon be announced. The current Theme leaders will remain another year to ensure sustainability and not loose momentum. Prof. Berit Arheimer steps down by the end of 2024 and the new Chair starts 1 January 2025. Follow the process and check out the Call in upcoming enews.

Helping web pages

All Working Groups now have dedicated webpages on the IAHS website  that you can reach by clicking their titles in the table. You can explore the activities under each Theme, browse through presentations and sign up to Working Groups and suggest new ones. You can also contact the Working Group's Chair directly through a contact form. 

Want To Know More About HELPING

If you're new to the world of HELPING and eager to get involved, don't hesitate to reach out to us. Just drop us an email at [email protected] and let's embark on this scientific journey together. 

• Join a Working Group
• Join IAHS membership
• Join Digital Water Globe
• Follow us on social media

IAHS is pleased to announce that the 2024 Tison award goes to Martin Addi (Ghana) for his work on the 2022 Hydrological Sciences Journal paper: Evaluation of imputation techniques for infilling missing daily rainfall records on river basins in Ghana, Hydrological Sciences Journal, Volume 67, Issue 4, Pages 613-627, DOI: 10.1080/02626667.2022.2030868. The paper is free to view.

The paper was co-authored by Yeboah Gyasi-Agyei, Emmanuel Obuobie & Leonard Kofitse Amekudzi who are not eligible for the Tison Award, age-wise.

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. This award is prestigious with a 1000 US$ prize and a 1 year subscription to HSJ co-sponsored by IAHS and Taylor & Francis, the publisher of Hydrological Sciences Journal. The award will be presented during the 2025 IAHS Scientific Assembly in Roorkee, India in October 2025. 

The description of the award is available here.

To all our incredible IAHS members & HSJ readers: Wishing you all a fantastic & well-deserved summer break! Enjoy the sunshine, relax, & recharge. Thank you for being a part of our amazing IAHS & HSJ community!

Latin America is home to unique hydrological systems with some of the largest river basins in the world. The combination of diverse climates, biomes and ecosystems with rapidly growing human footprints caused by urbanization, population growth and land use changes, makes it necessary and urgent to explore hydrological knowledge at the interface of science, policy and practice in water resources. The Advances in Hydrological Sciences in Latin America Special Issue will shed light on the distinctive hydrological features of Latin America, especially the complex challenges and opportunities for sustainable water management in the region. This Special Issue is an outcome of the recent Unsolved Problems in Hydrology Latin America initiative, and it is aligned with our IAHS Science for Solutions Decade HELPING, as we welcome contributions that:

(1) investigate interactions of water resources across different spatial scales,

(2) provide holistic solutions for water security,

(3) engage with hydrological knowledge co-creation.

Special Issue contributions are sought that present, but are not limited to:

• Urban hydrology: Investigating the effects of urbanization on hydrological processes, stormwater management, groundwater issues and climate resilience in urban water systems.
• Hydrology of unique ecosystems: Studying interactions in tropical, high-altitude, arid and coastal ecosystems, including the impacts of deforestation and land-use changes.
• Cross-Border Water Challenges: Offering comparative analyses of water availability, quality and socio-economic impacts on water management across borders.
• Hydrological indices and their application: Evaluating various hydrological and ecological indices to assess drought, floods, water scarcity and ecosystem health.
• Scaling issues: Studies at the bridge between the local and regional scales that enhance understanding of the hydrological processes and changes occurring in the region.
• Water management tools to support development: Addressing challenges and innovations in water resource management and quality control.

Abstract deadline: 20 July 2024
Manuscript deadline: 31 December 2024

The winner of the 2024 IAHS Falkenmark Award for best PhD thesis has been announced as Dr Djim Diongue from Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal for his thesis entitled "Water partitioning in the sol-vegetation-atmosphere continuum in semi-arid regions: Applying mechanistic modelling and water stable isotopes in the Groundnut and Ferlo Bassin, Senegal". The award ceremony is scheduled to take place 4-7 November 2024 in Florianopolis, Brazil during the joint IAHS and the Brazilian Association of Water Resources (ABRHidro) conference. 

Congratulations!

The Falkenmark Award for best PhD thesis:

• Recognises outstanding contributions to hydrological understanding of water scarcity and water supply.
• Is granted every year, starting 2023 (nomination must be submitted no later than 31 December).
• Highlights the importance of capacity building and knowledge/data gathering in financially disadvantaged countries.

Eligible nominees:

• Grew up in a financially disadvantaged country.
• Performed the PhD work in one or more financially disadvantaged countries.
• Holds a PhD certificate, which is dated within the last 2 years.

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. IAHS is pleased to announce the recipients of the International Hydrology Prize (Dooge medal and Volker medal) for 2024.

The 2024 recipients of the IAHS-UNESCO-WMO International Hydrology Prize are:

• Dooge medal - in recognition of her outstanding and remarkable contributions in taking to new frontiers the hydrological understanding of extreme weather events for the betterment of our communities - Prof. Lena Merete Tallaksen, at the University of Oslo, Physical Geography and Hydrology Section, Department of Geosciences, in Norway. 

• Volker medal - in recognition of her steady and distinguished contribution in advancing the hydrological sciences across disciplines, in particular to the analysis and management of flood risks in dynamic human-water systems - Dr. Heidi Kreibich, at the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Section Hydrology, in Germany.

The award ceremony is scheduled to take place in Florianopolis, Brazil during the joint IAHS and the Brazilian Association of Water Resources (ABRHidro) conference from 4-7 November 2024. 

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

As of 2014, 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.

Our warmest congratulations go to both recipients.