Thorsten Wagener

The 2026 John Dalton Medal is awarded to Thorsten Wagener for landmark contributions to hydrologic systems analysis and process-based evaluation of hydrologic models.

Thorsten Wagener is a globally recognized leader in hydrological sciences whose pioneering research, academic leadership, and dedicated service have shaped the field significantly. His work has advanced our ability to reliably assess current hydrologic conditions across scales and predict future risks in the face of limited and uncertain information.

Wagener played a lead role in the International Association of Hydrologic Sciences’ Prediction in Ungauged Basins (PUB) initiative, aimed at enabling better water resource management and risk assessment in data-scarce regions. He developed a catchment hydrologic similarity and classification framework relating landscape form and climate to watershed behavior, enhancing our ability to generalize hydrologic understanding across diverse catchments. Wagener’s tools for global sensitivity analysis and his diagnostic approach for model evaluation have become essential for improving the reliability and interpretability of hydrological models. The key paper on this method for sensitivity analysis ranks among the top 1% of papers published in the field of Computer Science, and has had impact well outside of hydrology.

Most recently, Wagener’s research has focused on hydrologic risk in a changing world, integrating climate variability, land use change, and socio-economic factors into risk assessment and water management strategies. Why do hydrological extremes translate into different hazard potentials in different areas, and how can this understanding be used to make better decisions? Toward this end, the community-driven 'Modular Curriculum for Hydrologic Advancement (MOCHA)' project Wagener has helped to initiate, aims at equipping the next generations of hydrologists with tools needed to address the ever-evolving societal challenges of the 21st century.