The growing availability of hydrological data products derived from Earth observations, reanalysis systems, numerical models, in situ monitoring networks, and data assimilations has transformed our ability to monitor and understand the terrestrial water cycle.
These products have become indispensable for supporting applications ranging from flood and drought management to water resources planning, agriculture, ecosystem monitoring, and climate adaptation. Yet product selection still often relies on general and often partial performance rankings that may not reflect the requirements of a specific process, scale, hydrological regime, model, hazard, service, or decision. They also may not reflect large differences in the spatial distribution and historical depth of the supporting data.
This session invites contributions that explore how hydrological data products should be assessed, compared, and used to maximize their scientific and societal value, based on the intended application. We encourage discussions on methodologies that go beyond traditional validation and consider aspects such as uncertainty, robustness, consistency across scales, interoperability, usability, and fitness for purpose.
Particular emphasis is placed on understanding how different user communities define product quality and how assessment frameworks can better reflect their needs.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
● Assessment, benchmarking, , and uncertainty assessment of satellite-derived, reanalysis, model-based, and integrated hydrological datasets.
● Fitness-for-purpose assessments of gridded products for scientific analyses, models, operational services, climate applications, and decision-support systems.
● Scale dependence, representativeness, and cross-product consistency.
● Experiences from operational services and real-world applications that reveal strengths and limitations of existing products.
● Case studies demonstrating how dataset choice influences hydrological analyses, forecasts, or management decisions.
● Emerging approaches for evaluating products in the context of digital twins, Earth system modelling, and climate services.
● Analyses or discussions addressing the influence of changes in the constelation(s) of Earth orbiting satellite.
The session welcomes contributions from data producers, hydrologists, remote sensing scientists, model developers, operational agencies, policy experts, and end users.