About this Research Topic

Background

This Research Topic is a part of the Delft 2021: 1st Sociohydrology Conference series. To view the other sessions please follow the links below:
Innovating a New Knowledge Base for Water Justice Studies: Hydrosocial, Sociohydrology, and Beyond
Scale Issues in Human-Water Systems
Water Resources and Human Behavior: Analysis and Modeling of Coupled Water-Human Systems Feedbacks and Coevolution
Solutions to Water Crises (Related to Actual Interventions)

Sociohydrology aims to provide crucial insights for understanding the mutual shaping mechanisms of human-water systems that govern co-evolutionary dynamics of water, land and urban processes. While it is well known that human activities, behaviors and decisions play an impacting role on the water cycle, the coupling and inter-linkages of human-water systems are rarely considered in water resource and disaster risk management. Sociohydrology aims to fill this crucial knowledge gap fostering trans-disciplinary studies promoting the development of novel human-water data collection and processing methods, numerical algorithms and participatory approaches for better understanding and management of natural resources.
Recent advances in hardware (e.g. mobile devices, low cost sensors, IoT, etc.) and software (e.g. geospatial tools; statistical analytics, artificial intelligence, etc.) technologies, along with the increased capabilities of remote sensing (e.g. satellites, drones, webcams etc.), provide unique opportunities to gather, process and share observations of natural and urban ecosystems.
Citizens are also more and more aware and concerned about climate and environmental issues. Voluntary community efforts are being increasingly developed around the world in order to advance science-driven participatory actions tackling water challenges. These initiative, which often benefit from large participation amongst stakeholders and the general public, offer new opportunities for observing freshwater systems. Crowdsourced data and citizen science provide a further stimulus and opportunity for natural and social sciences to join efforts and develop shared methods and procedures for observing, monitoring and simulating earth and anthropogenic dynamics.
Understanding coupled human water system also requires observations of human choices and behavior either in control settings such in human behaviour labs, living labs or in more randomized control trials settings. Adoption of innovative technologies remain a challenge, which requires understanding of human psychology and behavior based on social surveys inspired by diverse behavioural theories.

This Research Topic seeks to promote and publish research investigating human-water ecosystem interactions by means of innovative sensing technologies, observational data analytics and information management tools. We particularly envisage submissions that illustrate scientific and professional advancements (including best practices, case studies) based on state of the art monitoring technology, computer science, social and behavioral sciences, citizen science and big data for sociohydrology research and projects. Trans-disciplinary research, merging efforts of natural and earth sciences, are particularly encouraged for promoting investigations aiming to better understand the impact of human activities and behaviors on water-human systems. The goal is to create a community combining diverse background, expertise, data, models, technologies and case studies of interest for sociohydrology and related disciplines.

This Research Topic welcomes all kind of contributions that aim to better understand, observe, monitor and simulate human-water systems, but we especially encourage submissions on the following topics:
• Novel concepts and assessment frameworks for understanding and quantifying the interlinkages and feedbacks between human and water systems
• New human-water datasets, algorithms and analytical tools
• Opportunistic sensing, citizen science and crowdsourcing as innovative non-traditional means to monitor human and water system features, phenomena and behaviors
• New sensor technologies and monitoring approaches, including earth observation, that advance understanding of water availability and use at different scales.
• Data mining and processing for analyzing human and water systems including trans-disciplinary natural and social science surveying data, tools and procedures (e.g. social surveys, sociohydrological observatories etc.)
• Human behavior experiments, social surveys, living labs experiences, Randomized Control Trials

About Delft 2021: 1st Sociohydrology Conference-Sociohydrology has seen spectacular growth since its inception seven years ago. Until now, it has been difficult to bring the entire community together, including especially social scientists, water managers and stakeholders under one umbrella. In view of the urgency of the societal challenges and the need for a unified, holistic and inclusive approach to address these grand challenges, there is an urgent need for a larger, international conference. Delft 2021: Advancing Sociohydrology Conference, the first of its kind, will provide the necessary visibility and wider scope to attract a cross-section of water scientists and stakeholders

Keywords: Delft2021, Advancing Sociohydrology, Sociohydrology, Earth Observation, crowdsourced data, citizen science, trans-disciplinarity, remote sensing, frugal innovation, social surveys, human behavior

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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