Watershed Evolution and Water Cycle Response Under Global Change
A special issue of Hydrology (ISSN 2306-5338). This special issue belongs to the section "Hydrological and Hydrodynamic Processes and Modelling".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2026 | Viewed by 13
Special Issue Editors
Interests: hydrological processes; hydrological modelling
Interests: hydrological modeling; water resources engineering
Interests: ecohydrology; social hydrology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: hydrometeorology
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Watersheds represent a critical scale for hydrological research, bridging local processes with global Earth system dynamics. They integrate complex interactions among climate, landscape, and hydrological processes, with feedbacks spanning precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, and hydrochemical fluxes. In the era of accelerating climate change and anthropogenic pressures, watershed hydrology is undergoing unprecedented transformation. For instance, altered precipitation regimes, intensifying droughts and floods, cryospheric retreat, and land-use change are reshaping water availability, ecosystem services, and socio-ecological resilience.
Despite significant advances, our understanding of how climate change and human interventions co-drive watershed evolution and water cycle dynamics remains fragmented. Emerging evidence highlights the need for cross-disciplinary integration—combining satellite remote sensing, isotope hydrochemistry, AI-driven modeling, and Earth system frameworks—to identify mechanisms, thresholds, and feedbacks that govern watershed responses to global change.
This Special Issue aims to synthesize recent progress and stimulate new perspectives on the watershed evolution and water cycle response under global change, offering a forward-looking agenda that connects cutting-edge science with practical pathways for adaptation and resilience.
The Special Issue seeks to bring together international contributions that deliver the following:
- Novel insights into the drivers and mechanisms of watershed hydrological evolution.
- Comparative analyses across critical global hotspot regions (monsoon systems, cryospheric basins, and semi-arid agricultural frontiers).
- Future-oriented perspectives that identify knowledge gaps, methodological frontiers, and cross-regional lessons for hydrology under climate change.
By integrating diverse methodological approaches—remote sensing, isotope hydrochemistry, AI-based analytics, and Earth system science—we aim to go beyond case studies and highlight thematic patterns, transferable methodologies, and new conceptual frameworks.
This Special Issue invites original research articles, synthesis reviews, and perspective pieces around the following themes:
- Thresholds and tipping points in watershed hydrology under climate change.
- Cross-regional synthesis of watershed responses in global hotspots (monsoon, cryospheric, semi-arid, and agricultural).
- Methodological frontiers: AI, remote sensing, isotope tracing, and Earth system modeling for watershed dynamics.
- Multi-sphere interactions (climate–landscape–hydrology–ecology–human systems).
- Future directions: Uncertainty, resilience, and adaptation pathways in watershed-scale hydrology.
We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.
Dr. Man Gao
Dr. Shailesh Kumar Singh
Prof. Dr. Dengfeng Liu
Dr. Lingna Wei
Dr. Wei Yuan
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Hydrology is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- hydrological processes
- water cycle
- watershed dynamics
- watershed evolution
- global change
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