High-Mountain Hydrology: Multiscale Catchment Dynamics and Downstream Relevance

Dear Colleagues,

High-mountain regions, known as our “Water Towers”, are critical sources of freshwater, supporting ecosystems and human livelihoods far beyond their boundaries. However, these regions are undergoing rapid transformations due to global climate change and increasing socioeconomic pressures that trigger anthropogenic changes. Hydrological processes in high mountains are inherently complex, shaped by steep gradients, cryospheric dynamics, and strong spatial and temporal variability. Understanding these processes and their cascading impacts downstream is essential for sustainable water resource management.

This Special Issue, “High-Mountain Hydrology: Multiscale Catchment Dynamics and Downstream Relevance”, aims to bring together innovative research that advances our understanding of mountain hydrology across scales and enhances a holistic view of upstream–downstream connectivity. The focus is on hydrological alterations driven by climate and/or humans, novel modeling approaches, especially those focusing on model development and improvement, the integration and adoption of the newest Earth observation data and techniques, but also observational innovations. We welcome contributions that explore historical, present, and future dynamics of the mountain water cycle across various spatial and temporal scales.

This Special Issue welcomes manuscripts that focus on the following:

• Novel data-driven/process-based modeling approaches, remote sensing techniques, and observational systems to improve the representation of high-mountain hydrological processes and associated disasters.
• Advancements in conceptual and physically based hydrological models that address current limitations in simulating high-mountain systems.
• Downstream linkages, including socioeconomic and ecological dimensions, of upstream hydrological processes, and the implications of their alteration due to climate and anthropogenic changes.
• Multiscale perspectives on physical and hydrometeorological conditions, highlighting scale-dependent process relevance and variability.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Timo Schaffhauser
Prof. Dr. Chunyu Dong
Dr. Florentin Hofmeister
Guest Editors

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