Review papers in hydrology for linking research to practice: a reflection on the why’s and how’s

The constantly expanding research literature in hydrological sciences underlines the necessity of knowledge integration and synthesis. Review papers aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the published literature with focus on research gaps and priorities on a specific topic and/or region. While the hydrological science community has responded well to address the needs for knowledge integration and synthesis through publishing many review papers, it is not clear if and how these review papers can be helpful beyond academia. This is particularly important for tackling water-related issues in collaboration with water practitioners and stakeholders working towards providing operational hydrology services (e.g., data collection and management, modelling, prediction, hydroinformatics, decision support). Despite the societal relevance of applied hydrology research in the context of global development agenda, the potential of review papers for achieving the research-practice interface remains unexplored or largely ignored. Hereby, we discuss how review papers in hydrology could contribute to this dialogue and remove barriers around the translation of research into practice. With this objective in mind, we reflect on several principles of writing and communicating review papers, including: 1) effective writing (e.g., language and format), 2) purposeful content design and development (e.g., review context, research synthesis, main findings and implications), 3) high accessibility (e.g., open access publishing), and 4) efficient visibility and dissemination (e.g., meetings with stakeholders and/or users,  social media, artistic material). For each principle, we explore strategies, resources and tools to improve the benefit of review papers to  hydrology practitioners.