Elevating Open Hydrology practice and policy: insights for scientists

The concept of openness (open science, open innovation, open knowledge) has transformed the culture of science and research across the globe, with many scientific disciplines, organizations and countries committing to openness, transparency, accessibility and reproducibility. Development of policy and guidelines further promote Open Science practice by increasing national implementational measures. In this regard, the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (UNESCO, 2021) has set an international standard for picking up the pace to evolve together and for each other.

Integration of Open Science into hydrology is gaining higher momentum – there are many exemplary academic initiatives at personal and/or local levels which are scaled up at institutional and/or regional scales. However, there remains a lack of comprehensive strategic framework that advocates for the accessibility of hydrological research to a broad spectrum of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

The new “Open Hydrology” publication by UNESCO (https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/open-hydrology) addresses this gap by outlining six pillars— open data, open source, open publishing, open infrastructure, open education, and open participation — to highlight the true potential of Open Science to enhance research transparency, collaboration, and accessibility within water management practices. It is developed for members of (water) research communities and infrastructures, hydrological service providers (including private sector), research administrators and facilitators of research, publishers, policy makers and funders, citizen science groups and initiatives who have a stake in hydrology and water resources research. The key objectives of this publication are:

• to introduce key components of Open Hydrology and discuss required policies, leadership and capacity building,
• to highlight Open Hydrology stakeholders and existing initiatives, tools, resources, etc. for knowledge generation and science governance,
• to establish steps forward on how to address the needs and gaps in implementation of an Open Hydrology framework and,
• to identify opportunities and share recommendations for sustaining Open Hydrology.

In this talk, we will share the highlights from the “Open Hydrology” publication and discuss ways forward to enable the hydrological community to become an ‘Open Science Ambassador’.