The IAHS Working Group on the History of Hydrology and the future of education

The International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) Working Group on the ‘History of Hydrology’ (https://iahs.info/Initiatives/Working-Groups/History-of-Hydrology/) was established under the leadership of Keith Beven in December 2022. In 2025, Okke Batelaan succeeded Keith Beven as chair. Before the establishment, several scientific activities demonstrated broad interest in the history of hydrology, thereby underscoring the opportunity and need for this Working Group (Beven et al. 2025). In 2018-2019, well-attended EGU sessions on the ‘History of Hydrology’ were organised. In 2019, a special issue on the ‘History of Hydrology’ in the ‘Hydrology and Earth System Sciences’ resulted in 13 published papers.

The aims of the Working Group are:

1: To provide a central repository for information on the History of Hydrology with liaison, links and metadata on the existing initiatives and copies or links to important historical papers from multiple countries.

2: To encourage more international contributions from countries that are not currently well represented in the existing resources, including the identification of important historical papers from those countries.

3: To encourage the recording of the contributions of female hydrologists.

4: To encourage the recording of the histories of experimental catchments where important advances in understanding of hydrological processes have been made.

5: To encourage the recording of the histories of hydrological models and the people who worked with them.

6: To provide a mechanism for the recording of the history of projects representing good practice in sustainable hydrology for societies under change, building on the Case Studies in Panta Rhei.

Since its establishment, the Working Group has been active in further sessions on the History of Hydrology at the IAHS-IUGG General Assembly, Berlin, in 2023, at EGU in 2025-2026, while a special workshop ‘From the History of Hydrology to the Future of Education’ was organised at Eawag, Switzerland, in 2025. A new Special Collection on ‘History of Hydrology’ in the Hydrological Sciences Journal has been very successful with so far 22 papers. Since 2018, more than 20 ‘History of Hydrology Interviews’ have been recorded with hydrologists (https://www.youtube.com/@historyofhydrologyintervie846). In these interviews, hydrologists share their personal stories about their careers, inspirations, successes, failures, collaborations, friendships, influences, and thoughts about the future. These recordings are inspirational for all, especially students, early-career researchers, and senior researchers. The often personal and historical accounts of scientific directions and developments, which are rarely found in journal papers, are a valuable source of information for hydrological education. The ‘History of Hydrology Wiki’ (http://www.history-of-hydrology.net/mediawiki/index.php?title=Main_Page) is another high-value educational resource, as it provides biographies of hydrologists, histories of experimental and research catchments, histories of institutions, hydrological textbooks, and an annotated bibliography.

Alltogether, the Working Group on the ‘History of Hydrology’ provides a gold mine of information that can be infused into hydrological teaching and education and inspire the next generation of hydrologists.

 

Beven et al., 2025, On the value of a history of hydrology and the establishment of a History of Hydrology Working Group. Hydrological Sciences Journal 70(5):717-729. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2025.2452357.