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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Hayley Fowler
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2025 The Authors. 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. This article is part of the discussion meeting issue 'Hydrology in the 21st century: challenges in science, to policy and practice'.
Author(s): Orr HG, Hall CA, Rhodes V, Wilby RL, Peat KL, Fowler HJ
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
Year: 2025
Volume: 383
Issue: 2302
Print publication date: 31/07/2025
Online publication date: 31/07/2025
Acceptance date: 26/06/2025
Date deposited: 13/08/2025
ISSN (print): 1364-503X
ISSN (electronic): 1471-2962
Publisher: Royal Society Publishing
URL: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2024.0290
DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2024.0290
Data Access Statement: This article has no additional data.
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