Hydrological Sciences within the European Geosciences Union:
What do we do and what can you do?
President: Gerrit de Rooij, gerrit.derooij@ufz.de
Past President: Alberto Montanari, alberto.montanari@unibo.it
The hydrological sciences have their own division within the European Geosciences Union (EGU). This Hydrological Sciences division (HS) has three main tasks:
- Organizing the hydrological part of the program during the annual EGU General Assembly
- Running its on-line open access journal: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS)
- Recognizing deserving colleagues in various stages of their careers with its Award program.
Particularly the first two tasks require considerable input from many people, and offer plenty of opportunities to become actively involved. To ensure that the sessions during the General Assembly cover our science as comprehensively as possible, there are committees for distinct fields within the broad area of hydrology. Currently, we have ten such committees, and each organizes a set of oral and poster sessions to cover its field. Membership of these committees is open: you can e-mail the committee Chair to request membership. (See committees) The committees meet during the General Assembly and start preparing the draft programme for next year’s meeting in late spring/early summer. The meetings are open, and people often come in to propose new sessions and/or volunteer as convenor.
Convenors are responsible for an individual session, and usually operate in teams. The convenor team comes up with a session title and an abstract to indicate what kind of presentations are sought. The convenors also seek contributions by advertising their session. When the abstracts are in, they organize them into poster and oral sessions, or into a poster-only session.
You can also become involved in the journal. HESS seeks members for its Editorial Board to replace editors who completed their term, and to ensure that the Editorial Board as a whole has a sufficiently broad spectrum of expertise to adequately handle all incoming papers. Usually, new editors are proposed by current editors for approval by the Executive Editors and the Division President. If you would like to become active as an editor you may therefore consider informing any editor or Executive Editor of your wish.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me or any other EGU-HS Officer.
Gerrit de Rooij
HS President
Latest news
Short course on 'Model building, inference and hypothesis testing in hydrology'
From May, 21 until 25 the CRP-Gabriel Lippmann (Luxembourg) will organize a short course on Model building, inference and hypothesis testing in hydrology'. The lecturers are: Fabrizio Fenicia (CRP – Gabriel Lippmann) and Dmitri Kavetski (University of Adelaide, Australia). And invited lectures will be given by: Martyn Clark (NCAR, Boulder), Benjamin Renard (IRSTEA, Lyon) and Hubert Savenije (Delft University of Technology)
Further information can be found here.
Günter Blöschl elected next EGU President
After an extremely close election, Günter Blöschl, who is a Past President of the Hydrology Division, won the election for the EGU Presidency with a 13-vote margin, receiving 831 votes (37% of the total) in a field of three candidates. I thank you all fro your vote: with such a razor-thin margin, each of your votes really made a difference!
The Hydrology Division is as happy as Günter himself, and warmly congratulates him with this result. I am looking forward to the cooperation.
Günter will be inaugurated in Vienna during the upcoming General Assembly. He will serve one year as President-Elect and will be Vice-President during that year (2012-2013). In 2013 starts his two-year tenure as President (2013-2015), followed by a one-year term (2015-2016) as Past-President (Vice President).
Gerrit de Rooij
President Hydrological Sciences
Extended deadline 3rd EGU Leonardo Conference on the Hydrological Cycle: Floods in 3D - Processes, Patterns, Prediction (23-25 November 2011)
The deadline for the topical conference in Bratislava, Slovakia is extended to 31 July.
AGU Awards and Medals for Murugesu Sivapalan, Tammo Steenhuis, and Carlo Laj
For 2011, the American Geophysical Union rewarded three people with connections to the Hydrological Sciences Division:
- After winning the 2010 AGU Hydrology Award, Murugesu Sivapalan (Executive Editor of HESS and Dalton Medalist) went on to win the Robert E. Horton Medal for outstanding contributions to hydrology.
- Tammo Steenhuis (Darcy Medalist) won the International Award for making an outstanding contribution to furthering Earth Sciences and using science for the benefit of society in less favored nations.
- Carlo Laj, who is very active in the EGU Outreach initiative GIFT (Geosciences Information for Teachers), received the Excellence in Geophysical Education Award for his sustained commitment to excellence in geophysical education.
Follow this link for details: http://www.agu.org/news/archives/2011-07-19_AGU_Medials_Awards.shtml
The Hydrological Sciences Division warmly congratulates Siva, Tammo, and Carlo for this recognition of their work.
Gerrit de Rooij
President Hydrological Sciences