Joint Editorial—On the future of journal publications in hydrology

Editors from several journals in the field of hydrology met during the Assembly of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences in Gothenburg in July 2013 to share thoughts on the future of journal publishing in hydrology. The group of editors reviewed the current status of the journals and the publication process, and discussed the future strategies for responding to changes in the global publication arena in a proactive way. In the meeting, a number of possible actions were identified to help strengthen journal publications and research in hydrology as a whole. These are communicated in this Joint Editorial published in the journals Hydrological Sciences Journal, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Hydrology Research, Journal of Hydrology and Water Resources Research. All five journals bear testimony to the substantial progress that has been achieved. Comparing a present-day journal issue with those published decades ago clearly shows that the overall body of knowledge has increased dramatically. Also, in addition to the rapid developments resulting from advances in computing power and information technology, there has been real progress in terms of the research questions being addressed, the instrumentation being used today and the methods of data analysis. In the hydrological community, there is increasing appreciation of the value of data, the nature of process complexity, scale issues, uncertainties and the significance of studying change and its mechanisms, including human activities. These contribute to an emerging mandate to put the science of hydrology into the context of societal needs. There has also been a substantial increase in productivity, which has resulted in a major increase in the number of submissions. In 2013 alone, the five journals received a total of about 5000 submissions, and almost 2000 articles were published. This surge in submissions is related to a culture change in academic institutions worldwide. There is a greater emphasis on bibliometric indices related to international journal publications as the main indicator of research performance. The increase in submissions also has downsides. With the higher number of submissions, it is often hard for editors to find a sufficient number of competent reviewers willing to undertake the task. Recognizing that authors and reviewers are members of the same peer group, we would like to stress that, if it is normal to have two or three reviews per submitted paper, authors should also be willing to accept, on average, two or three times as many review assignments as the number of papers they submit. It is a shared responsibility to assure the quality of our peer review system, so we hope authors will more readily accept review requests, thus helping other authors who will, in turn, help them. The increase in submissions has not been equally distributed over the different regions of the world. Hydrological Sciences Journal – Journal des Sciences Hydrologiques, 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2014.908041 1