HESS cover
Executive editors : Theresa Blume, Alberto Guadagnini, and Thom Bogaard & Hilary McMillan
eISSN: HESS 1607-7938, HESSD 1812-2116

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS) is a not-for-profit international two-stage open-access journal for the publication of original research in hydrology. HESS encourages and supports fundamental and applied research that advances the understanding of hydrological systems, their role in providing water for ecosystems and society, and the role of the water cycle in the functioning of the Earth system. A multi-disciplinary approach is encouraged that broadens the hydrological perspective and the advancement of hydrological science through integration with other cognate sciences and cross-fertilization across disciplinary boundaries.

Journal metrics

HESS is indexed in the Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, etc. We refrain from displaying the journal metrics prominently on the landing page since citation metrics used in isolation do not describe importance, impact, or quality of a journal. However, these metrics can be found on the journal metrics page.

News

07 May 2026 Temporary unavailability of article and preprint PDFs due to technical issues

Since Tuesday, 5 May, 06:30 CET, we have been experiencing technical issues caused by high demand on our systems, which have significantly affected our journal libraries. To maintain platform stability and ensure continued access to critical services, all preprint and journal article PDFs were temporarily restricted, while HTML full-text content and XML files remained available. Since Thursday, 7 May, 08:30 CET, we have made the preprint PDFs available again; however, journal article PDFs remain restricted until the technical issues have been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work to restore full PDF access as quickly as possible. Thank you for your understanding.

07 May 2026 Temporary unavailability of article and preprint PDFs due to technical issues

Since Tuesday, 5 May, 06:30 CET, we have been experiencing technical issues caused by high demand on our systems, which have significantly affected our journal libraries. To maintain platform stability and ensure continued access to critical services, all preprint and journal article PDFs were temporarily restricted, while HTML full-text content and XML files remained available. Since Thursday, 7 May, 08:30 CET, we have made the preprint PDFs available again; however, journal article PDFs remain restricted until the technical issues have been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work to restore full PDF access as quickly as possible. Thank you for your understanding.

13 Feb 2026 University of Western Ontario partners with Copernicus Publications to support open-access publishing

Copernicus Publications has signed a new agreement with Western Libraries at the University of Western Ontario, providing a 50% APC reduction for eligible corresponding authors submitting from 1 January 2026. Please read more.

13 Feb 2026 University of Western Ontario partners with Copernicus Publications to support open-access publishing

Copernicus Publications has signed a new agreement with Western Libraries at the University of Western Ontario, providing a 50% APC reduction for eligible corresponding authors submitting from 1 January 2026. Please read more.

03 Dec 2025 New MS Word template available for manuscript preparation

The existing MS Word template for authors has been significantly expanded and now includes many important notes on the standard sections that must be included in the manuscript. Please visit the "Submission" page, section "Templates for your manuscript file" and download the new template before writing your next manuscript.

03 Dec 2025 New MS Word template available for manuscript preparation

The existing MS Word template for authors has been significantly expanded and now includes many important notes on the standard sections that must be included in the manuscript. Please visit the "Submission" page, section "Templates for your manuscript file" and download the new template before writing your next manuscript.

Recent papers

11 Jun 2026
Projections of future hydrological drought in a reservoir-regulated region: the roles of climate change and reservoir operation
Shaokun He, Sirui Sun, Yanghe Liu, Kebing Chen, Lingling Zhu, and Yu Gong
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 3529–3547, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-3529-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-3529-2026, 2026
Short summary
11 Jun 2026
Testing discharge assimilation strategies to enhance short-range AI-based operational rainfall–runoff forecasts
Bob E. Saint-Fleur, Eric Gaume, Florian Surmont, Nicolas Akil, and Dominique Theriez
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 3497–3527, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-3497-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-3497-2026, 2026
Short summary
10 Jun 2026
Integrating propagation and recovery dynamics into groundwater drought vulnerability assessment through exposure, pressure, and aquifer system response
Katarzyna Sawicka and Klaudia Jurzyk
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1904,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1904, 2026
Preprint under review for HESS (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
10 Jun 2026
Climate change intensifies hydrological seasonality in Denmark: Insights from an integrated model assessment
Raphael Schneider, Simon Stisen, Lars Troldborg, Jens Christian Refsgaard, and Ida Karlsson Seidenfaden
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1531,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1531, 2026
Preprint under review for HESS (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
10 Jun 2026
Closing the Latency Gap for Operational Flood Forecasting: Near-Real-Time 1-km Hourly Gridded Forcing in Germany
Mehrdad Mohannazadeh Bakhtiari, Ehsan Modiri, Viet Dung Nguyen, Oldrich Rakovec, Luis Eduardo Samaniego Eguiguren, and Husain Najafi
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1316,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1316, 2026
Preprint under review for HESS (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary

Highlight articles

27 May 2026
A novel classifier-guided ensemble framework for global terrestrial evapotranspiration estimates
Le Ni, Weiguang Wang, Jianyu Fu, and Mingzhu Cao
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 3283–3312, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-3283-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-3283-2026, 2026
Short summary Editorial statement
23 Apr 2026
Technical note: High Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiencies conceal poor simulations of interannual variance in seasonal regimes
Sacha W. Ruzzante, Wouter J. M. Knoben, Thorsten Wagener, Tom Gleeson, and Markus Schnorbus
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 2337–2355, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-2337-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-2337-2026, 2026
Short summary Editorial statement
23 Mar 2026
A lesson in preparedness: assessing the effectiveness of low-cost post-wildfire flood protection measures for the catastrophic flood in Kineta, Greece
George Papaioannou, Angelos Alamanos, Mohammed Basheer, Nikolaos Nagkoulis, Vassiliki Markogianni, George Varlas, Angelos Plataniotis, Anastasios Papadopoulos, Elias Dimitriou, and Phoebe Koundouri
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 1487–1501, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-1487-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-1487-2026, 2026
Short summary Editorial statement
22 Jan 2026
High resolution monthly precipitation isotope estimates across Australia from machine learning
Georgina Falster, Gab Abramowitz, Sanaa Hobeichi, Catherine Hughes, Pauline Treble, Nerilie J. Abram, Michael I. Bird, Alexandre Cauquoin, Bronwyn Dixon, Russell Drysdale, Chenhui Jin, Niels Munksgaard, Bernadette Proemse, Jonathan J. Tyler, Martin Werner, and Carol V. Tadros
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 289–315, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-289-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-289-2026, 2026
Short summary Editorial statement
13 Jan 2026
Global projections of aridity index for mid and long-term future based on CMIP6 scenarios
Camille Crapart, Sandrine Anquetin, Juliette Blanchet, and Arona Diedhiou
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 163–181, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-163-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-163-2026, 2026
Short summary Editorial statement

Notice on APC invoices

In accordance with current European restrictions, Copernicus Publications does not step into business relations with and issue APC invoices (articles processing charges) to Russian and Belarusian institutions. The peer-review process and scientific exchange of our journals including preprint posting is not affected. However, these restrictions require that the first contact (contractual partner of Copernicus) has an affiliation and invoice address outside Russia or Belarus.