Issue #108

April 2025

Hydrological Sciences Journal Digest

Latest articles & Journal updates

 
 
 

The latest news from HSJ

Welcome to HSJ Digest, our bi-monthly synopsis of the latest news from Hydrological Sciences Journal. In this issue, we toast the winners of the 2024 Reviewer Awards and profile the winner of the Associate Editor Award. See all the latest articles published in HSJ, and discover a wealth of Featured and Open Access articles from recent issues.

Winners announced!

Associate Editor Award

Congratulations to Marina Batalini de Macedo, winner of the 2024 Associate Editor Award. The award is granted for outstanding overall contribution to the Journal’s impact and visibility, and excellence in supporting authors and editors through the peer review process. Marina is naturally in the spotlight in our regular ‘Meet the Editor’ slot below.

Reviewer Awards

The annual HSJ Reviewer Award is granted for outstanding contribution to the Journal, and excellence in supporting authors and editors with timely and relevant reviews. The Co-editors selected five reviewers for their outstanding service to the Journal in 2024: Ciro Apollonio, Abinesh Ganapathy, Sujay Naganna, Andrzej Wałęga and Dinesh Kumar Vishwakarma

Our heartfelt congratulations to all of this year’s awardees!

 

IAHS 2025 Scientific Assembly in Roorkee, India 5–10 October 2025

We are intending to hold an Editorial Retreat for the HSJ Editorial Board to coincide with the Scientific Assembly: dates are being finalized, but we will very likely meet during the first two days of the Assembly; financial assistance will be available for Associate Editors – further details will be announced in due course.

There is still time to submit abstracts for poster presentations (including optional three-minute interviews) at the Scientific Assembly. For further details, see iahs2025.com.

 

Special Issues

The Call for Papers is now live for our latest Special Issue: ‘Contribution of isotope hydrology to water sciences in Africa’; abstracts (or articles) can be submitted here.

And we are still accepting submissions to Advances in hydrological science in Latin America and History of hydrology.

Openly in HSJ

Open Access papers from recent issues

Research Articles 
Identifying the impacts of urbanization and extreme flows on river water temperatures in headwater catchments 
Danny Croghan et al.

Urban sprawl and drought are turning headwater streams into temperature hotspots, but, surprisingly, cities might offer some shade. The study reveals and quantifies how low-flows supercharge warming, and how urban landscapes, counterintuitively, could buffer against these extreme heat events.

Utility of single-source surface energy balance models in estimation of daily actual evapotranspiration in arid regions
Nishchay Kumar and Mohamed
A. Hamouda

This research elucidates the efficacy of various satellite-based models in quantifying evapotranspiration within arid environments, providing critical insights for informed water resource management and strategic planning.

Technical Note
Functional data analysis to investigate controls on and changes in the seasonality of UK baseflow
Kathryn Leeming et al. 

This research uses cutting-edge analysis to unravel the hidden rhythms of UK rivers, mapping baseflow patterns to reveal how climate change subtly shifts the timing of crucial water flows across the UK.

Special issue: History of hydrology 
W. N. McClean – pioneer of Scottish hydrometry 
Alan Werritty and Andrew Black

Discover the forgotten legacy of
W. N. McClean, the Scottish engineer who charted rivers before the advent of modern technology, establishing some of the UK's longest, still-running, water records. His pioneering work, capturing pristine natural flow and historic floods, remains a vital snapshot of Scotland's untouched waterways.

 
 

Co-editors’ choice  

One article in every issue is singled out by the Co-editors to be featured for its excellence or innovation, and is awarded six months’ free access; in addition, the editors periodically choose an article of particular topical interest. Recent selections include the following:

Vol. 70 Issue 2

Featured article - free to view for six months
Assessing the impact of a large multi-purpose reservoir on flood control under moderate and extreme flood conditions
Pratik Chakraborty et al.

Are multi-purpose reservoirs effective in flood control, and under what conditions? This study highlights the variability of multi-purpose reservoirs’ effectiveness with operational decisions and reservoir conditions using a novel approach based on individual events. Insights on benefits and limitations are provided.

 

Vol. 70 Issue 3

Featured article - free to view for six months  
Hydrological design in the HELPING decade – inspiring the community to innovate the hydrological design concept
Svenja Fischer et al.

This opinion paper outlines the need for improved hydrological design and communication with the interested parties in an appropriate and comprehensive way, and highlights challenges such as data limitations and model uncertainty. It aims to foster collaboration, during the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) HELPING decade, to address these gaps and enhance the practical application of hydrological design.

Topical article 
Quantifying the value of stakeholder-elicited information in models of coupled human–water systems
Sai Veena Sunkara, Riddhi Singh and Ajay Bhave

A significant proportion of the global population relies on multi-purpose reservoirs for irrigation, hydroelectricity and domestic water needs. This paper develops three alternative conceptualizations of water supply and use for a typical reservoir, each including stakeholder-elicited information. The study highlights the need to interact with water users and reservoir operators in developing socio-hydrological models in such human-dominated landscapes.

 

Vol. 70 Issue 4

Featured article – free to view for six months 
Special issue: Twenty-first century hydrological challenges and opportunities in Africa

Unveiling hydrological responses in Madagascar’s major river basins: addressing data scarcity and land-use change impacts
Zy Harifidy Rakotoarimanana et al.

This research investigates how land use and land cover changes affect water resources in Madagascar's major river basins, using a model to overcome the limitations of scarce data. The study predicts significant changes to the water balance by 2050 and recommends tailored water management plans for each basin.

Technical Note
Assessing rating curve uncertainty
Thomas A. McMahon et al.

This paper presents a method for quantifying the uncertainty in daily stream discharge data, often overlooked by hydrologists, using rating curves and stream gauging. It offers two metrics, based on root mean square error and extrapolated flow volume, allowing researchers to compare their data against a high-quality Australian dataset.

 

HSJ Vol. 70

Issue 2

Special issue: History of hydrology
The debate on the origin of springs in Italy in the age of the Scientific Revolution
Stefano Barontini and Matteo Settura

Special issue: Emerging hydro-climatic dynamics and human–water interactions in a changing world: Perspectives from Roorkee Water Conclave 2024
A framework for implementation of environmental flow requirements through community perceptions – the case of Bargi Dam, Jabalpur District, Madhya Pradesh
Govind M. P., Rama Umesh Pandey and Pradeep Kumar

Featured article  
Assessing the impact of a large multi-purpose reservoir on flood control under moderate and extreme flood conditions
Pratik Chakraborty et al.

Research articles 
Wavelet analysis of discharge and sediment load for the Subarnarekha, Brahmani, and Mahanadi rivers of India
Mohd Imaran, Arun Chakraborty and Subhasish Tripathy

Analysis of extreme water levels on Feiyun River (Rui’an section) based on peaks-over-threshold (POT) model
Zipeng Qin et al.

Intrinsic vs extrinsic controls on experimental shallow lacustrine delta channel evolution: sediment load and lake level
Haijue Xu et all.

Enhancing decadal snowfall forecasts in the Mediterranean mountains through informed atmospheric variability and climate data
Nazzareno Diodato, Sara Rubinetti and Gianni Bellocchi

Hybrid physically based and machine learning model to enhance high streamflow prediction
Sergio Ricardo López-Chacón, Fernando Salazar and Ernest Bladé

Detecting temporal shifts in extreme precipitation regime, and the implications for urban locations and major crops in Illinois
Manas Khan, Rabin Bhattarai and Liang Chen

Identifying the impacts of urbanization and extreme flows on river water temperatures in headwater catchments
Danny Croghan et al.

Soil erosion modelling of degraded semi-arid highlands in Northern Ethiopia
Araya Kahsay et al.

HSJ Vol. 70

Issue 3

Special issue: Emerging hydro-climatic dynamics and human–water interactions in a changing world: Perspectives from Roorkee Water Conclave 2024 
A framework for generating rating curves in Mahanadi River using hydrodynamic model and radar altimetry data
Pankaj R. Dhote et al.

Special issue: Twenty-first century hydrological challenges and opportunities in Africa 
Compound-event analysis in non-stationary hydrological hazards: a case study of the Niger River in Niamey
Elisa Sauzedde et al.

Special issue: History of hydrology 
W. N. McClean – pioneer of Scottish hydrometry 
Alan Werritty and Andrew Black

The force of Forchheimer – the contributions of Philipp Forchheimer to groundwater hydrology
Georg Houben et al.

Featured article (Opinion) 
Hydrological design in the HELPING decade – inspiring the community to innovate the hydrological design concept
Svenja Fischer et al.

Topical article 
Quantifying the value of stakeholder-elicited information in models of coupled human–water systems
Sai Veena Sunkara, Riddhi Singh and Ajay Bhave

Research articles 
Research on parameter regionalization based on decision tree algorithm: a case study of 16 catchments in northeast China
Xuantao Zhao et al.

Optimizing integrated water supply management for multi-purpose reservoirs: a policy tree approach
Mahdi Erfani and Erfan Goharian

Feasibility of hydrological modelling for intermittent streams using HEC-HMS: a process evaluation
Manimeldura D. D. Perera and Pattiyage I. A. Gomes

Flood risk assessment combining the historical disaster statistics method with the index system method
Lusheng Che, Shuyan Yin and Yishu Guo

Technical note
Functional data analysis to investigate controls on and changes in the seasonality of UK baseflow
Kathryn A. Leeming et al. 

HSJ Vol. 70

Issue 4

Special issue: Advances in hydrological science in Latin America
Improved Grunsky method for streamflow prediction in ungauged catchments
Bruno K. Marchezepe et al.

Special issue: History of hydrology 
Hydrological heritage: a historical exploration of human–water dynamics in northeast Brazil
Bruno Silva Pereira et al.

Featured article
Special issue: Twenty-first century hydrological challenges and opportunities in Africa
Unveiling hydrological responses in Madagascar’s major river basins: addressing data scarcity and land-use change impacts
Zy Harifidy Rakotoarimanana et al.

Research articles
Dependence of rainfall–runoff model performance on calibration conditions under changing climatic conditions
Afshin Jahanshahi, Martijn J. Booij and Sopan D. Patil

Rain rate retrieval from Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar images during a tropical cyclone based on machine learning
Mengyu Hao et al.

Water dynamics and evaporation losses to inflows into transboundary Mediterranean lakes – the case of Prespa Lakes
Ioannis Matiatos et al.

Using sensitivity analysis and soft calibration of geological regions to improve the representation of hydrological processes in a SWAT+ model
Alejandro Sánchez-Gómez et al.

Evaluation of future hydropower potential for mountainous headwaters in response to climate change
Yusuf Oğulcan Doğan and Aynur Şensoy

Utility of single-source surface energy balance models in estimation of daily actual evapotranspiration in arid regions 
Nishchay Kumar and Mohamed
A. Hamouda

Technical note
Assessing rating curve uncertainty
Thomas A. McMahon, Murray
C. Peel and Gnanathikkam
E. Amirthanathan

 
 
 
 

Meet the Editor

Marina Batalini de Macedo is an Assistant Professor at the Federal University of Itajubá, Brazil, working on water resources engineering. Her main subject expertise is in flood and water management, nature-based solutions for urban drainage, climate change mitigation and adaptation, hydrological modelling and water geopolitics. Marina serves on the 

Rio Grande Watershed Committee and is a member of the Steering Committee of Young Water Professionals for the International Water Association. She holds a post-doctoral degree in Public and Environmental Health, and a PhD and Masters in Sanitation and Hydraulic Engineering from the University of Sao Paulo. 

‘I have been an Associate Editor with HSJ since 2020, working with an incredible editorial team who have always given me all the support I needed, in addition to getting to know great researchers in the field who, over time, have become great colleagues. Working as an

AE has allowed me to expand my knowledge in the field of hydrology, to be in touch with new work, research and methods being developed, with a global view of new trends, successes and possibilities for collaborations with other research centres outside Brazil.

I have always tried to make this not just a bureaucratic office job, but a source of inspiration, innovation and partnerships. It was an immense joy to receive the AE award as recognition for all this work – and a great surprise, because I have never seen this work as an effort, but rather as a contribution to my creative thinking, and consequently to my life as a researcher. Receiving this award certainly gives me an extra incentive and recognition that
I am on the right path!’

 

 
 
 

HSJ Editorial Board

The Journal’s five Co-editors
and c. 60 Associate Editors
work tirelessly to maintain the flow of articles through peer review.
Meet them here

Digital Water Globe (DWG)

Share your research using the IAHS Digital Water Globe
(DWG)
– an innovative tool specially designed for, and by, IAHS members. Give visibility
to (un)published results, research sites and find peers for collaborating around the world.

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