Abstract
Abstract. The stationarity of hydrological systems is dead in the era of the Anthropocene. Has our hydrological or water resources knowledge been well transformed to address this change? By using publications indexed in the Web of Science database since 1900, we aim to investigate the global development of water resources knowledge at the river basin scale with a systems approach, of which water resources knowledge development in a river basin is defined as a complex system involving the co-evolutionary dynamics of scientific disciplines and management issues. It is found that (1) legacy-driven water resources knowledge structures have consistently dominated most of the highly researched river basins in the world, while innovation-driven structures are identified in the river basins receiving increasing research publications in the recent period; (2) the management issues addressed by legacy-driven river basin studies are increasingly homogenized, while a wider range of emerging issues are considered by innovation-driven river basin studies; and (3) cross-disciplinary collaborations have remained largely unchanged and collaborations with social sciences have been very limited. It is concluded that the stationarity of water resources knowledge structure persists. A structural shift of water resources knowledge development is urgently needed to cope with the rapidly changing hydrological systems and associated management issues, and opportunities for such a shift exist in those less researched but globally distributed innovation-driven river basins.
Highlights
Humans have made substantial impacts on various Earth system cycles, marking the transition of our planet into the Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2002; Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000).This has been powered by the development of science and technology in particular since the industrial and scientific revolutions (Lubell and Morrison, 2021; Steffen et al, 2011; Lewis and Maslin, 2015)
The hydrological cycle is a central component of the Earth system, and it is widely recognized that the stationarity of the hydrological system is dead as a result of human impacts (Milly et al, 2008; Ajami et al, 2017; Birkinshaw et al, 2014)
Surface water and groundwater management (1610) and water pollution and treatment (1228) continued to be at the centre of issues focussed on, with studies on water policy, climate variability and change, sedimentation and erosion, and ecological degradation and restoration gaining momentum. These management issues, those emerging in different temporal periods, were consistent with those identified by the mainstream hydrological and water resources communities (Sivapalan, 2018; Mccurley and Jawitz, 2017; Cudennec et al, 2015)
Summary
Humans have made substantial impacts on various Earth system cycles, marking the transition of our planet into the Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2002; Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000). This has been powered by the development of science and technology in particular since the industrial and scientific revolutions (Lubell and Morrison, 2021; Steffen et al, 2011; Lewis and Maslin, 2015). Discipline experts qualitatively review and assess theoretical advances, methods development, and key challenges in the field based on their research experiences and professional knowledge (e.g., Savenije et al, 2014; Mcmillan et al, 2016; Sivapalan, 2018). Systemic bibliometric studies are conducted to quantitatively investigate the structure of disciplinary knowledge and reveal the interactions among major research topics
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