Patterns, puzzles and people: implementing hydrologic synthesis

Abstract

There have been several calls made for hydrologic synthesis research: namely activities which unify diverse data sources across sites, scales and disciplines to uncover new connections and to promote a holistic understanding of water science. This paper draws on the NSF-funded Hydrological Synthesis Project (HSP) run by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to elucidate mechanisms, benefits and challenges of implementing hydrologic synthesis research from the perspectives of participants in a pilot research study. Two broadly different mechanisms of implementing synthesis were adopted in the HSP: 6-week Summer Institutes in which Ph.D. students conducted team-based research under the guidance of faculty mentors, and focused workshops which disseminated knowledge and shared experiences between scientists at many different career levels. The Summer Institutes were a test bed in which new ideas could be explored, assisted students in developing a wide range of skills, and were highly productive, but posed challenges for mentors and students because the 'new' research topics initiated during the Institutes' programmes needed to be completed in competition with students' ongoing Ph.D. research or mentor's existing research programs. The workshop-based model circumvented this conflict and was also highly productive, but did not offer the same opportunity to experiment with new ideas as part of the synthesis research. Leadership, trust, flexibility and long gestation times were all important to bringing synthesis research to a positive resolution. Funding models that embrace the exploratory aspects of synthesis and provide adequate support to mentors and students over these long timescales would facilitate future hydrologic synthesis research.

Developing predictive insight into changing water systems: use-inspired hydrologic science for the Anthropocene

“…Successful interdisciplinary teams are often centered around an attempt to understand multifaceted, real-world problems (Irwin et al, 2012). Tangible problems and desired outcomes assist in creating common goals, and motivate researchers through the challenging processes of developing common vocabulary, conceptual frameworks and methods (Thompson et al, 2011a). In this way, use-inspired science may also provide a framework for team science.…”

Scaling, similarity, and the fourth paradigm for hydrology

“…1, represents an augmentation to the scientific method in hydrology. Foundational (Sivapalan, 2005;McDonnell et al, 2007) and more recent work (Thompson et al, 2011;Harman and Troch, 2014) on "Darwinian" hydrology has used scale and similarity concepts to synthesize catchments across scales, places, and processes. As noted in McDonnell et al (2007) there has been a call for a reconciliation of the Newtonian and Darwinian approaches, starting first in the ecology community (Harte, 2002), and we believe that moving to a fourth paradigm with the augmented scientific method depicted in Fig.…”

It takes a community to raise a hydrologist: the Modular Curriculum for Hydrologic Advancement (MOCHA)

“…In addition to the increasing societal recognition of water-related issues and threats, there are opportunities to enhance hydrology education by linking it to popular concepts such as sustainability or millennium development goals, e.g., access to clean water (Mihelcic et al, 2008) or risk in regard to natural hazards (Boynton and Hossain, 2010). Despite these opportunities, there are continued calls for necessary change to hydrology education (Clifford, 2002;Howe, 2008;Ledley, 2008;Manduca et al, 2008;Wagener et al, 2010;Thompson et al, 2011), to satisfy the demands of a strong job market for hydrologists (van Vuren et al, 2009;Zimmerman, 2009;Milano, 2010).…”