Aims and scope

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. The discussion and peer review of submitted preprints are handled either on EGUsphere, EGU's preprint repository, on in the open-access discussion forum HESSD. Final papers, upon acceptance, appear in HESS (see interactive review process).

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. HESS, therefore, aims to serve not only the hydrological science community but all earth and life scientists, water engineers, and water managers, who wish to publish original findings on the interactions and feedbacks between the governing processes of the water cycle and processes governing atmospheric circulation and climate, bio-geochemical cycling, dynamics, and resilience of ecosystems and socio-economy.

The scope of HESS encompasses the following:

1. the role of physical, chemical, and biological processes in the cycling of continental water in all its phases, including dissolved and particulate matter, at all scales, from the micro-scale processes of soil water to the global-scale processes underpinning hydro-climatology;
2. the study of the spatial and temporal characteristics of the global water resources (solid, liquid, and vapour) and related budgets, in all compartments of the Earth system (atmosphere, oceans, estuaries, rivers, lakes, and land masses), including water stocks, residence times, interfacial fluxes, and the pathways between various compartments;
3. the study of interactions with human activity of all the processes, budgets, fluxes, and pathways as outlined above, and the options for influencing them in a sustainable manner, particularly in relation to floods, droughts, desertification, land degradation, eutrophication, and other aspects of global change.

The journal publishes research articles, technical notes, opinion papers, book reviews, articles on high-level scientific failures, cutting-edge case studies, brief communications, studies on earth science education and communication, and comments on papers published previously in HESS (see manuscript types). Papers should contribute to the advancement of hydrological modelling, hydrological monitoring and data analysis, process concepts, experimental design and technology, or theoretical foundations.