Hydrology Newsletter

Support HydroGeek The HydroGeek post “Twenty Waves of Change: Top 20 Water Stories of 2025” gathers the year’s most striking water headlines into a single powerful narrative. From deadly floods and brutal droughts to digital water breakthroughs and bold governance shifts, these stories together show how quickly and unevenly the world’s water future is changing. library ​ A year of extremes Across continents, 2025 was marked by record‑breaking droughts and catastrophic floods often hitting the same regions within months. Rivers ran dry in some basins while others burst their banks under unprecedented rainfall, reinforcing scientific warnings about a more erratic global water cycle in a warming climate. bwi +2 ​ These extremes pushed many cities and rural areas toward acute water stress, reviving “Day‑Zero” language and making abstract climate projections feel uncomfortably real for millions of people. news.un +2 ​ Crisis in access and equity The blog also highlights how, despite technol...

The story of modern hydrology does not begin with satellites, supercomputers, or deep learning models. It begins with a simple, yet revolutionary question: Is rainfall alone enough to explain the flow of a river? The answer, first demonstrated quantitatively in the Seine basin, quietly transformed hydrology from a discipline of speculation into a measurement‑driven science. hydrogeek.substack ​ A recent HydroGeek article, “Do you know who performed the first quantitative rainfall–runoff estimates?”, revisits this turning point and the scientist behind it, often described as a founder of experimental hydrology. This blog builds on that piece—zooming out to show why that early work still shapes how hydrologists think, model, and manage water today. hydrogeek.substack ​ The world before quantitative rainfall–runoff Before this pioneering study, many scholars and engineers doubted whether rainfall alone could sustain the perennial flow of major rivers. Explanations often invoked vag...

Coastal salinity is emerging as one of the most critical indicators of how climate change, sea-level rise, and human interventions are reshaping our coasts. Coastal aquifers, estuaries, and deltaic systems are under growing pressure from saltwater intrusion, threatening drinking water security, agriculture, and ecosystem health. Designing a robust coastal salinity monitoring network is no longer optional; it is a prerequisite for informed planning, prediction, and policy. Why salinity monitoring matters Salinity controls density-driven circulation, stratification, and mixing in coastal and estuarine waters, which in turn influence sediment transport, nutrient cycling, and habitat suitability for aquatic life. Changes in salinity patterns can signal upstream over-extraction, altered river discharge, storm surges, and sea-level rise long before they become visible crises. Continuous and spatially representative salinity measurements help in early detection of intrusion “fronts,” seasonal...