HESS cover
Executive editors : Theresa Blume, Alberto Guadagnini, and Thom Bogaard & Hilary McMillan
eISSN: HESS 1607-7938, HESSD 1812-2116

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS) is a not-for-profit international two-stage open-access journal for the publication of original research in hydrology. HESS encourages and supports fundamental and applied research that advances the understanding of hydrological systems, their role in providing water for ecosystems and society, and the role of the water cycle in the functioning of the Earth system. A multi-disciplinary approach is encouraged that broadens the hydrological perspective and the advancement of hydrological science through integration with other cognate sciences and cross-fertilization across disciplinary boundaries.

Journal metrics

HESS is indexed in the Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, etc. We refrain from displaying the journal metrics prominently on the landing page since citation metrics used in isolation do not describe importance, impact, or quality of a journal. However, these metrics can be found on the journal metrics page.

News

03 Dec 2025 New MS Word template available for manuscript preparation

The existing MS Word template for authors has been significantly expanded and now includes many important notes on the standard sections that must be included in the manuscript. Please visit the "Submission" page, section "Templates for your manuscript file" and download the new template before writing your next manuscript.

03 Dec 2025 New MS Word template available for manuscript preparation

The existing MS Word template for authors has been significantly expanded and now includes many important notes on the standard sections that must be included in the manuscript. Please visit the "Submission" page, section "Templates for your manuscript file" and download the new template before writing your next manuscript.

02 Apr 2025 New co-review option in HESS

HESS now offers a co-review option for referees. Please read more.

02 Apr 2025 New co-review option in HESS

HESS now offers a co-review option for referees. Please read more.

02 Apr 2025 Get involved, become a referee, and help shape the HESS community publication output

We are pleased to announce that a new referee application form is now available. This means that if you are interested in contributing to the peer-review process and supporting high-quality scientific publishing in your community then you can apply today to become a referee. Your expertise can make a difference. Visit the online form here to learn more and join our reviewer community.

02 Apr 2025 Get involved, become a referee, and help shape the HESS community publication output

We are pleased to announce that a new referee application form is now available. This means that if you are interested in contributing to the peer-review process and supporting high-quality scientific publishing in your community then you can apply today to become a referee. Your expertise can make a difference. Visit the online form here to learn more and join our reviewer community.

Recent papers

30 Dec 2025
Climate and landscape jointly control Europe's hydrology
Julia M. Rudlang, Thiago V. M. do Nascimento, Ruud van der Ent, Fabrizio Fenicia, and Markus Hrachowitz
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6372,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6372, 2025
Preprint under review for HESS (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
30 Dec 2025
Improving weather radar rainfall estimates by merging with commercial microwave link data: a fully reproducible, large-scale method intercomparison
Erlend Øydvin, Elia Covi, Maximilian Graf, and Christian Chwala
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6371,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6371, 2025
Preprint under review for HESS (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
27 Dec 2025
Diagnosing Dissolved Organic Carbon Simulation of SWAT-C model Using Machine Learning Approaches
Zehong Huang, Shouzhi Chen, Yufeng Gong, Zheng Wang, Zheng Duan, and Yongshuo H. Fu
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-5503,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-5503, 2025
Preprint under review for HESS (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
27 Dec 2025
Introducing the Model Fidelity Metric (MFM) for robust and diagnostic land surface model evaluation
Zezhen Wu, Zhongwang Wei, Xingjie Lu, Nan Wei, Lu Li, Shupeng Zhang, Hua Yuan, Shaofeng Liu, and Yongjiu Dai
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6212,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6212, 2025
Preprint under review for HESS (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
23 Dec 2025
Elucidating loessal landslide initiation in wood- and shrub-land by hydro-mechanical heterogeneity
Ruijie Yang, Chao Ma, Xi Yang, Yan Zhang, Liqun Lyu, and Xinying Wang
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6098,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6098, 2025
Preprint under review for HESS (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary

Highlight articles

15 Dec 2025
How do geological map details influence the identification of geology-streamflow relationships in large-sample hydrology studies?
Thiago V. M. do Nascimento, Julia Rudlang, Sebastian Gnann, Jan Seibert, Markus Hrachowitz, and Fabrizio Fenicia
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 7173–7200, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-7173-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-7173-2025, 2025
Short summary Executive editor
01 Dec 2025
From RNNs to Transformers: benchmarking deep learning architectures for hydrologic prediction
Jiangtao Liu, Chaopeng Shen, Fearghal O'Donncha, Yalan Song, Wei Zhi, Hylke E. Beck, Tadd Bindas, Nicholas Kraabel, and Kathryn Lawson
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 6811–6828, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-6811-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-6811-2025, 2025
Short summary Executive editor
23 Sep 2025
Assessment of source regions of the Zambezi River: implications for regional water security
Mauro Lourenco, Rutledge S. Boyes, Fenton P. D. Cotterill, Tyrel Flügel, Frank C. Nyoni, Goabaone J. Ramatlapeng, and Rainer von Brandis
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 4557–4583, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-4557-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-4557-2025, 2025
Short summary Executive editor
07 Aug 2025
Consequences of the Aral Sea restoration for its present physical state: temperature, mixing, and oxygen regime
Georgiy B. Kirillin, Tom Shatwell, and Alexander S. Izhitskiy
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 3569–3588, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3569-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3569-2025, 2025
Short summary Executive editor
18 Jul 2025
The value of hydroclimatic teleconnections for snow-based seasonal streamflow forecasting in central Asia
Atabek Umirbekov, Mayra Daniela Peña-Guerrero, Iulii Didovets, Heiko Apel, Abror Gafurov, and Daniel Müller
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 3055–3071, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3055-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3055-2025, 2025
Short summary Executive editor

Notice on the current situation in Ukraine

To show our support for Ukraine, all fees for papers from authors (first or corresponding authors) affiliated to Ukrainian institutions are automatically waived, regardless if these papers are co-authored by scientists affiliated to Russian and/or Belarusian institutions. The only exception will be if the corresponding author or first contact (contractual partner of Copernicus) are from a Russian and/or Belarusian institution, in that case the APCs are not waived.

In accordance with current European restrictions, Copernicus Publications does not step into business relations with and issue APC-invoices (articles processing charges) to Russian and Belarusian institutions. The peer-review process and scientific exchange of our journals including preprint posting is not affected. However, these restrictions require that the first contact (contractual partner of Copernicus) has an affiliation and invoice address outside Russia or Belarus.