Urban and urbanizing watersheds are among the most dynamic landscapes on Earth, where land use change, population growth, infrastructure development, and evolving water demands reshape hydrological processes, water quality, and catchment functioning. Understanding watershed responses across the urbanization continuum is essential for advancing hydrological science, improving prediction, and informing integrated water and land management.
This session welcomes contributions on urban watersheds across a range of topics, including but not limited to: catchment functioning and responses to land use change; runoff generation, hydrological extremes, and urban drainage processes; water quantity and quality; the sources, transport, transformation, and fate of anthropogenic inputs; urban groundwater and surface water–groundwater interactions; urban water supply and source-water protection; stormwater and wastewater management, blue-green infrastructure, and other nature-based approaches for urban water management; and ecological responses and ecosystem services in urban waters.
We particularly encourage contributions grounded in field studies and monitoring networks in urban settings, including long-term and high-frequency observatories, sensor networks, tracer and isotope studies, citizen science and community-based monitoring, and paired or nested catchment designs, that advance process understanding, calibrate and validate models, or inform the design of urban water management strategies. Contributions linking such field-based approaches with remote sensing, modeling, data assimilation, and data-driven and machine-learning approaches are welcome, as are studies on urban water infrastructure, governance, community engagement, socio-hydrology, and adaptive water and land management.
We encourage contributions spanning a range of climatic, geographic, and socio-economic settings, as well as studies across different stages and forms of urbanization, particularly comparative studies that help identify knowledge gaps in urban watershed processes and management challenges.