Moving sociohydrology forward: a synthesis across studies

Sociohydrology is the study of coupled human–water systems with the premise that water and human systems co-evolve, often with two-way coupling. A recent special issue in HESS/ESD, "Predictions under change: water, earth, and biota in the Anthropocene", includes a number of sociohydrologic publications that allow for a survey of the current state of understanding of sociohydrology and the coupled system dynamics and feedbacks, the research methodologies available, and the norms and ethics involved in studying sociohydrologic systems. Although sociohydrology is concerned with coupled human–water systems, it is critical to consider the sociohydrologic system as embedded in a larger, complex social–ecological system through which human–water feedbacks can occur and from which the sociohydrologic system cannot be isolated. As such, sociohydrology can draw on tools developed in the social–ecological and complex systems literature to further our sociohydrologic knowledge, and this is identified as a ripe area of future research.