The involvement of individuals and groups with an interest and role in managing water resources is increasingly recognised as essential for effective water management. Due to this interest, stakeholder participation is a broad and rapidly growing research field. In this session, we will explore the diverse array of concepts, approaches and evaluation tools being utilised by hydrology and water management researchers to gain an understanding of participation. Themes covered by the session include, but are not limited to:

• Modelling with stakeholders: from perceptual to procedural models; co-learning and co-management.
• Engaging stakeholders: incorporating stakeholder knowledge with hydrological knowledge to parameterise, drive and test models; scenario development; interpretation of model results.
• Decision-aiding processes and decision support tools.
• Eliciting and weighting stakeholder knowledge, modelling of uncertainty and addressing stakeholder concerns.
• Existing and emerging challenges and benefits from stakeholder involvement in hydrological research.
• Critical reflection, evaluating participation and measuring “success”.
• Social learning and emerging outcomes from collaborative research in hydrology.

This session will consist of a poster discussion session where all authors will have the opportunity to deliver a short summary presentation of their work, which will be followed by extensive discussion. Authors are advised that, instead of a small number of 15 minute talks, we aim for maximum discussion and exchange through a series of mini-talks plus posters by all presenters.