Hydroinformatics has emerged over the last decade to become a recognised and established field of independent research within the hydrological sciences. Hydroinformatics is concerned with the development and hydrological application of mathematical modelling, information technology, systems science and computational intelligence tools. It provides the computer-based decision-support systems that are now entering more and more into the offices of consulting engineers, water authorities and government agencies. Tools for capturing data, on both a mega-scale and a milli-scale, are immense and still emerging. As a result we have to face the challenges of Big Data: large data sets, both in size and complexity. Methods and technologies for data handling, visualization and knowledge acquisition are more and more often referred to as Data Science.

The aim of this session is to provide an active forum in which to demonstrate and discuss the integration and appropriate application of emergent computational technologies in a hydrological modelling context. Topics of interest are expected to cover a broad spectrum of theoretical and practical activities that would be of interest to hydro-scientists and water-engineers. The main topics will address the following classes of methods and technologies:

* Predictive and analytical models based on the methods of statistics, computational intelligence and data science: neural networks, fuzzy systems, support vector machines, genetic programming, cellular automata, chaos theory, etc.
* Methods for the analysis of complex data sets, including remote sensing data: principal and independent component analysis, feature extraction, time series analysis, data-infilling, information theory, etc.
* Specific concepts and methods of Big Data and Data Science such as data thinning, data fusion, information integration
* Optimisation methods associated with heuristic search procedures: various types of genetic and evolutionary algorithms, randomised and adaptive search, ant colony, particle swarm optimisation, etc.
* Applications of systems analysis and optimisation in water resources
* Hybrid modelling involving different types of models both process-based and data-driven, combination of models (multi-models), etc.
* Data assimilation and model reduction in integrated modelling
* Novel methods of analysing model uncertainty and sensitivity
* Appropriate software architectures for linking different types of models and data sources

Applications could belong to any area of hydrology or water resources: rainfall-runoff modelling, flow forecasting, sedimentation modelling, analysis of meteorological and hydrologic data sets, linkages between numerical weather prediction and hydrologic models, model calibration, model uncertainty, optimisation of water resources, etc.

Within the framework of the new scientific decade 2013-2022 of IAHS, 'Panta Rhei - Everything Flows', this session also explores how data-driven hydrological systems models may be enhanced by incorporating data and information that can help to reveal and describe the complex feedbacks between people and the hydrological system, in particular examining the opportunities and challenges that hydrological measurements sourced through citizen science and crowd sourcing approaches offer and how the participation of stakeholders and end-users in the model development process could deliver improved models.

Our confirmed solicited speaker, Prof. Jan Seibert (University of Zurich) will be giving a key note talk titled: "Can citizens observe what models need? - Evaluation of the potential value of crowd-based hydrological observations".