About this Research Topic
Generating knowledge with the potential to advance transformative policies requires the co-involvement of natural and social scientists, policymakers, practitioners, and the local communities that experience most significantly the impacts of water-related challenges and related development struggles. In this context, socio-hydrology can play a crucial role in crafting sustainable water futures that respect and acknowledge site and time-specific particularities and a wide range of perspectives, including those based on lived experiences and intergenerational knowledge. How can we ensure that socio-hydrology is part of the discussion and contributes to more inclusive knowledge-to-action (K2A) pathways and equitable water governance? To answer such question, this theme focuses on:
i) Pluralizing water knowledge through interdisciplinary engagement that combines natural and (critical) social sciences to generate power-sensitive and justice-focussed accounts of hydrological change.
ii) Conceptualizing approaches and empirical examples of knowledge co-creation that recognize the value of different forms of knowledge, Indigenous knowledge, and gendered and local voices, to investigate new causalities and address water-related challenges at multiple scales.
iii) Mapping models and paradigms to break barriers and make science-society work in closer synergy, integrating socio-hydrological and hydrosocial sciences.
iv) Investigating the potential of collaborative interactive governance in conflict-laden transboundary basins.
v) Promoting the role of qualitative insights such as ethnography, visualization techniques, and novel digital/open science means to generate transdisciplinary knowledge.
vi) And finally, acknowledging ways to navigate through and take responsibility for the entanglements between socio-hydrological and hydrosocial science and politics.
i) Pluralizing water knowledge through interdisciplinary engagement that combines natural and (critical) social sciences to generate power-sensitive and justice-focussed accounts of hydrological change.
ii) Conceptualizing approaches and empirical examples of knowledge co-creation that recognize the value of different forms of knowledge, Indigenous knowledge, and gendered and local voices, to investigate new causalities and address water-related challenges at multiple scales.
iii) Mapping models and paradigms to break barriers and make science-society work in closer synergy, integrating socio-hydrological and hydrosocial sciences.
iv) Investigating the potential of collaborative interactive governance in conflict-laden transboundary basins.
v) Promoting the role of qualitative insights such as ethnography, visualization techniques, and novel digital/open science means to generate transdisciplinary knowledge.
vi) And finally, acknowledging ways to navigate through and take responsibility for the entanglements between socio-hydrological and hydrosocial science and politics.
Keywords: water knowledge, water governance, policy making, socio-hydrology, hydrological change, hydrosocial sciences
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