Urban hydrological processes are characterized by high spatial variability and short response times due to the high degree of imperviousness. As a result, urban catchments are especially sensitive to the spatial-temporal variability of precipitation at small scales. High-resolution precipitation measurements in cities are crucial to properly describe and analyze urban hydrological response. At the same time, urban landscapes pose specific challenges to obtaining representative precipitation and hydrological observations.

This session focuses on high-resolution precipitation and hydrological measurements in cities and on approaches to improve modeling of urban hydrological response, including:
- Novel techniques for high-resolution precipitation measurement in cities and for multi-sensor data merging to improve the representation of urban precipitation fields.
- Novel approaches to hydrological field measurements in cities, including data obtained from citizen observatories.
- Precipitation modeling for urban applications, including, amongst others, convective permitting models and stochastic rainfall generators.
- Novel approaches to modeling urban catchment properties and hydrological response, from physics-based, conceptual and data-driven models to stochastic and statistical conceptualization.
- Applications of measured precipitation fields to urban hydrological models to improve hydrological representation and prediction at different time horizons to ultimately enable improved management of urban drainage systems (including catchment strategy development, flood forecasting and management, real-time control, and proactive protection strategies aimed at preventing flooding and pollution).
- Strategies to deal with upcoming challenges, including climate change and rapid urbanization.