HESS Opinions: Towards a common vision for the future of hydrological observatories
<p>The Unsolved Problems in Hydrology (UPH) initiative has emphasized the need to establish networks of multi-decadal hydrological observatories to gain a deep understanding of the complex hydrologic processes occurring within diverse environmental conditions. The already existing monitoring i...
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Copernicus Publications
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Hydrology and Earth System Sciences |
| Online Access: | https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/29/465/2025/hess-29-465-2025.pdf |
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| author | P. Nasta G. Blöschl G. Blöschl H. R. Bogena S. Zacharias R. Baatz G. De Lannoy K. H. Jensen S. Manfreda L. Pfister L. Pfister A. M. Tarquis I. van Meerveld M. Voltz Y. Zeng W. Kustas X. Li H. Vereecken N. Romano |
| author_facet | P. Nasta G. Blöschl G. Blöschl H. R. Bogena S. Zacharias R. Baatz G. De Lannoy K. H. Jensen S. Manfreda L. Pfister L. Pfister A. M. Tarquis I. van Meerveld M. Voltz Y. Zeng W. Kustas X. Li H. Vereecken N. Romano |
| author_sort | P. Nasta |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | <p>The Unsolved Problems in Hydrology (UPH) initiative has emphasized the need to establish networks of multi-decadal hydrological observatories to gain a deep understanding of the complex hydrologic processes occurring within diverse environmental conditions. The already existing monitoring infrastructures have provided an enormous amount of hydrometeorological data, facilitating detailed insights into the causal mechanisms of hydrological processes, the testing of scientific theories and hypotheses, and the revelation of the physical laws governing catchment behavior. Yet, hydrological monitoring programs have often produced limited outcomes due to the intermittent availability of financial resources and the substantial efforts required to operate observatories and conduct comparative studies to advance previous findings. Recently, some initiatives have emerged that aim to coordinate data acquisition and hypothesis<span id="page466"/> testing to facilitate an efficient cross-site synthesis of findings. To this end, a common vision and practical data management solutions need to be developed. This opinion paper provocatively discusses two potential endmembers of a future hydrological observatory (HO) network based on a given hypothesized community budget: a comprehensive set of moderately instrumented observatories or, alternatively, a small number of highly instrumented supersites.</p>
<p>A network of moderately instrumented monitoring sites would provide a broad spatial coverage across the major pedoclimatic regions by supporting cross-site synthesis of the lumped hydrological response (e.g., rainfall–runoff relationship, Budyko analysis) across diverse continental landscapes. However, the moderate instrumentation at each site may hamper an in-depth understanding of complex hydrological processes. In contrast, a small number of extensively instrumented research sites would enable community-based experiments in an unprecedented manner, thereby facilitating a deeper understanding of complex, non-linear processes modulated by scale-dependent feedback and multiscale spatiotemporal heterogeneity. Lumping resources has proven to be an effective strategy in other geosciences, e.g., research vessels in oceanography and drilling programs in geology. On the downside, a potential limitation of this approach is that a few catchments will not be representative of all pedoclimatic regions, necessitating the consideration of generalization issues.</p>
<p>A discussion on the relative merits and limitations of these two visions regarding HOs is presented to build consensus on the optimal path for the hydrological community to address the UPH in the coming decades. A final synthesis proposes the potential for integrating the two endmembers into a flexible management strategy.</p>
<p>Keywords: hydrological observatory network, experimental catchments, cross-site synthesis, hypothesis testing vs. exploratory science, unsolved problems in hydrology, societal needs, technology advancements.</p> |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ffdb739fd636405894cca229d87cb5c9 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1027-5606 1607-7938 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Copernicus Publications |
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| series | Hydrology and Earth System Sciences |
| spelling | doaj-art-ffdb739fd636405894cca229d87cb5c92025-01-23T13:35:15ZengCopernicus PublicationsHydrology and Earth System Sciences1027-56061607-79382025-01-012946548310.5194/hess-29-465-2025HESS Opinions: Towards a common vision for the future of hydrological observatoriesP. Nasta0G. Blöschl1G. Blöschl2H. R. Bogena3S. Zacharias4R. Baatz5G. De Lannoy6K. H. Jensen7S. Manfreda8L. Pfister9L. Pfister10A. M. Tarquis11I. van Meerveld12M. Voltz13Y. Zeng14W. Kustas15X. Li16H. Vereecken17N. Romano18Department of Agricultural Sciences, Division of Agricultural, Forest and Biosystems Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, Portici (Naples), ItalyInstitute of Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management, TU Wien, Vienna, AustriaDepartment of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Bologna, Bologna, ItalyAgrosphere Institute, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, GermanyHelmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, GermanyLeibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Müncheberg, GermanyDepartment of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Division Soil and Water Management, KULeuven, Leuven, BelgiumDepartment of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, Geology section, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, DenmarkDepartment of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering (DICEA), University of Naples Federico II, Naples, ItalyLuxembourg Institute of Science & Technology (LIST), Environmental Sensing and Modelling unit (ENVISION), Esch-sur-Alzette, LuxembourgDepartment of Engineering, Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine (FSTM), University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, LuxembourgCEIGRAM, Department of Applied Mathematics, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Madrid, SpainDepartment of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich, SwitzerlandLaboratoire sur les Interactions Sol-Agrosystème-Hydrosystème UMR INRAE-IRD-Institut Agro 2, Montpellier CEDEX, FranceDepartment of Water Resources, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, Enschede, the NetherlandsUSDA-ARS Hydrology & Remote Sensing Lab, Beltsville, USANational Tibetan Plateau Data Center, State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, ChinaAgrosphere Institute, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, GermanyDepartment of Agricultural Sciences, Division of Agricultural, Forest and Biosystems Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, Portici (Naples), Italy<p>The Unsolved Problems in Hydrology (UPH) initiative has emphasized the need to establish networks of multi-decadal hydrological observatories to gain a deep understanding of the complex hydrologic processes occurring within diverse environmental conditions. The already existing monitoring infrastructures have provided an enormous amount of hydrometeorological data, facilitating detailed insights into the causal mechanisms of hydrological processes, the testing of scientific theories and hypotheses, and the revelation of the physical laws governing catchment behavior. Yet, hydrological monitoring programs have often produced limited outcomes due to the intermittent availability of financial resources and the substantial efforts required to operate observatories and conduct comparative studies to advance previous findings. Recently, some initiatives have emerged that aim to coordinate data acquisition and hypothesis<span id="page466"/> testing to facilitate an efficient cross-site synthesis of findings. To this end, a common vision and practical data management solutions need to be developed. This opinion paper provocatively discusses two potential endmembers of a future hydrological observatory (HO) network based on a given hypothesized community budget: a comprehensive set of moderately instrumented observatories or, alternatively, a small number of highly instrumented supersites.</p> <p>A network of moderately instrumented monitoring sites would provide a broad spatial coverage across the major pedoclimatic regions by supporting cross-site synthesis of the lumped hydrological response (e.g., rainfall–runoff relationship, Budyko analysis) across diverse continental landscapes. However, the moderate instrumentation at each site may hamper an in-depth understanding of complex hydrological processes. In contrast, a small number of extensively instrumented research sites would enable community-based experiments in an unprecedented manner, thereby facilitating a deeper understanding of complex, non-linear processes modulated by scale-dependent feedback and multiscale spatiotemporal heterogeneity. Lumping resources has proven to be an effective strategy in other geosciences, e.g., research vessels in oceanography and drilling programs in geology. On the downside, a potential limitation of this approach is that a few catchments will not be representative of all pedoclimatic regions, necessitating the consideration of generalization issues.</p> <p>A discussion on the relative merits and limitations of these two visions regarding HOs is presented to build consensus on the optimal path for the hydrological community to address the UPH in the coming decades. A final synthesis proposes the potential for integrating the two endmembers into a flexible management strategy.</p> <p>Keywords: hydrological observatory network, experimental catchments, cross-site synthesis, hypothesis testing vs. exploratory science, unsolved problems in hydrology, societal needs, technology advancements.</p>https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/29/465/2025/hess-29-465-2025.pdf |
| spellingShingle | P. Nasta G. Blöschl G. Blöschl H. R. Bogena S. Zacharias R. Baatz G. De Lannoy K. H. Jensen S. Manfreda L. Pfister L. Pfister A. M. Tarquis I. van Meerveld M. Voltz Y. Zeng W. Kustas X. Li H. Vereecken N. Romano HESS Opinions: Towards a common vision for the future of hydrological observatories Hydrology and Earth System Sciences |
| title | HESS Opinions: Towards a common vision for the future of hydrological observatories |
| title_full | HESS Opinions: Towards a common vision for the future of hydrological observatories |
| title_fullStr | HESS Opinions: Towards a common vision for the future of hydrological observatories |
| title_full_unstemmed | HESS Opinions: Towards a common vision for the future of hydrological observatories |
| title_short | HESS Opinions: Towards a common vision for the future of hydrological observatories |
| title_sort | hess opinions towards a common vision for the future of hydrological observatories |
| url | https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/29/465/2025/hess-29-465-2025.pdf |
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