Hydrology for impact: building partnerships, blending knowledge and bracing for climate change

The hydrology community plays a critical role in understanding, communicating and managing hydroclimatic hazards and water security. As climate-related trends and risks emerge, there is an urgent need to help communities and organizations prepare for changes that are already underway and expected to become more severe. There is consensus about the need for transdisciplinary collaboration and participatory research to co-create knowledge to support informed decision-making. However, there is less clarity about how this should be done in practice. Achieving meaningful societal impact through research is not an exact science, and we do not propose a definitive framework or ‘recipe for success’. Instead, we reflect on our collective experiences over the last 20 years and surmise that strong partnerships, open communication and a willingness to embrace uncertainty can accelerate the impact of hydrological research on policy and practice and hence societal preparedness for climate change. We also advocate the development of new metrics—beyond research income and citations—to incentivize academics to plan for, and engage in, more impactful research-into-practice. We further call on government departments, research funders, professional bodies, societies and business associations to support the enabling environments needed to achieve this outcome.