A scientific decade on change in hydrology and society requires the perspectives of those disciplines that have traditionally been concerned with society, the social and policy sciences, as well as of society itself. The aim of this session on transdisciplinary approaches is to understand how these perspectives can be combined with hydrological perspectives to create new ways of approaching socio-hydrological questions, related for instance to drought management, flood prevention or adaptive delta management. Transdisciplinary research deals with socially relevant problems, with a clear urgency for decision-making. Transdisciplinary approaches address these issues through participatory research and a co-production of knowledge between scientists and other societal actors.

Contributions are invited, but are not limited, to the following themes:
1. Co-production of knowledge and policy. What approaches are available to support a fruitful collaboration between hydrological science and practitioners? How do we deal with uncertainty, adaptation, path dependencies but also with aspects of power, inequality and vested interests in these co-production processes? Who are the users of our knowledge, how useful is our knowledge for those societal users?
2. Interdisciplinary collaborations. Transdisciplinary research requires an interdisciplinary collaboration that accounts not only for the physical, chemical and biological processes of water systems, but also the interaction between these processes and societal components of these systems. How do we create the interdisciplinary knowledge needed to address the questions faced by decision-makers and societal stakeholders? What is the role of hydrologists in these processes? What are the mutual expectations of collaborating researchers from different disciplines and from societal stakeholders?
3. Real-world challenges of operational hydrology. Scientists are not removed from the things they study. How does hydrological knowledge intersect with societal discourses as it is applied in water resources management?

This session will offer a platform for research contributions on transdisciplinary processes, methods and case studies, but also for practical experiences with transdisciplinary research that are not usually reported in mainstream hydrology journals, but which carry important lessons for transdisciplinary work.

Authors are advised that we follow a PICO format for this session as we aim for maximum discussion and exchange. All authors will have the opportunity to deliver a short summary presentation of their work, followed by extensive discussion.

This session is organised by the Working Group "Transdisciplinarity" of IAHS' scientific decade on change in hydrology and society "Panta Rhei".
See recent paper by this Working Group 'A transdisciplinary account of water research', Krueger et al. WIREs Water 2016. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1132. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wat2.1132/full