In the next decades, expected changes in the water cycle will be a major driver in shaping our environment and its ecosystems. Water is the key factor for life and for sustaining food, feed and biomass for energy production in today’s bio-based economies. The water cycle will be strongly affected by climate change but the extent and impact on ecosystems functioning and services are only roughly known. Increasing hydrological extremes, such as floods and droughts, may lead to severe ecological, economic and societal impacts. In a recent review, Vereecken et al. (2015) urged the hydrological science community to establish a network of hydrological observatories in Europe. At present, there is no concerted and dedicated action in the field of hydrology neither in Europe nor world-wide with respect to making hydrological data accessible to the research community and in designing cross-catchment experiments.
Topics: Soil moisture dynamics across scales; Data assimilation and hydrological observations; UAS- and satellite-based remote sensing for hydrological observatories; Geophysics and isotopes in catchment hydrology; Big data science in hydrological research.
