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

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

30 Jun 2026 The Norwegian University of Science and Technology partners with Copernicus Publications to support open-access publishing

Copernicus Publications has signed a new institutional agreement with Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Please read more.

30 Jun 2026 The Norwegian University of Science and Technology partners with Copernicus Publications to support open-access publishing

Copernicus Publications has signed a new institutional agreement with Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Please read more.

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.

Recent papers

04 Aug 2026
Transient electroosmotic transport under evolving pH and contrasting background electrolyte concentrations: coupled controls of interfacial charge and pore structure
Wencheng Wu, Guofang Pan, Heng Dai, Jing Yang, and Ping Yang
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-4386,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-4386, 2026
Preprint under review for HESS (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
04 Aug 2026
Hysteresis between groundwater and surface water levels indicates the states of hydrological turnover affecting solute transport and redox processes
Lars Bäthke and Tobias Schuetz
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 4889–4907, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4889-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4889-2026, 2026
Short summary
04 Aug 2026
RiverGraphNet: Physics-Aware Routing of Gridded Runoff Through Directed River Networks
Mohammad A. Farmani, Andrew Bennet, Sadaf Moghisi, Hoshin Gupta, Muhammad Jawad, Ali Behrangi, Ahmad A. Tavakoly, and Guo-Yue Niu
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-4157,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-4157, 2026
Preprint under review for HESS (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
04 Aug 2026
Field-scale soil moisture retrieval from drone-based L-band radiometry with optical and thermal infrared priors
Zixi Li, Yan Li, Rui Tong, Peizhe Cheng, Fuqiang Tian, and Yao Zhuang
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 4909–4925, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4909-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4909-2026, 2026
Short summary
04 Aug 2026
Metrics that matter: objective functions and their impact on signature representation in conceptual hydrological models
Peter Wagener, Wouter J. M. Knoben, Niels Schütze, and Diana Spieler
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 4867–4888, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4867-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4867-2026, 2026
Short summary

Highlight articles

15 Jul 2026
Wildfire-induced disruptions to evapotranspiration, runoff, and water-balance closure across California's water supply watersheds
Ziying Han, Han Guo, Michael L. Goulden, and Roger C. Bales
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 4367–4382, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4367-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4367-2026, 2026
Short summary Editorial statement
29 Jun 2026
Understanding changes in Iceland's streamflow dynamics in response to climate change
Hordur Bragi Helgason, Andri Gunnarsson, Óli G. B. Sveinsson, and Bart Nijssen
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 3979–3999, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-3979-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-3979-2026, 2026
Short summary Editorial statement
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

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.