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Information on soil hydraulic properties (e.g. soil moisture pressure relationships and hydraulic conductivity) is valuable for a wide range of disciplines including hydrology, ecology, environmental management and agriculture. However, this information is often not readily available as direct measurements are costly and time-consuming. Furthermore, as more complex representations of soils are being built into environmental models, users and developers often require sound hydraulic property information, while having limited access to specialist knowledge. Although indirect methods have been developed to obtain soil hydraulic properties from easily measurable or readily available soil properties via pedo-transfer functions (PTFs), few articles provide guidance for obtaining soil hydraulic properties over a wide range of geoclimatic and regional data availability contexts. The aim of this study is, therefore, to develop guidelines and an associated spatially referenced toolbox, NB_PTFs, to speed the process of acquiring sensible soil hydraulic properties for different geoclimatic and data-rich/sparse regions. The guide compiles available information about soil hydraulic properties, as well as a large number (151) of PTFs, not collated in any other guidance to date. NB_PTFs is an open-source ArcGIS toolbox which allows users to quickly get values, graphs and spatial distributions of soil hydraulic properties. The soil hydraulic properties, obtained using the guide and the toolbox, can be used as inputs for various models amongst other purposes. To demonstrate the use of the guidelines and the toolbox in different geoclimatic and data-availability contexts, the paper presents two case studies: the Vietnamese Mekong Delta and New Zealand Hurunui catchment. The Vietnamese Mekong Delta shows the use of these guidelines in a tropical, flat location with limited information on soil physical, chemical and hydraulic properties. The Hurunui catchment represents a case study for a semi-arid and hilly area in an area with detailed soil information.

Ecosystems provide a range of services, including water purification, erosion prevention, and flood risk mitigation, that are important to water resource managers. But as a sector, water resources management has been slow to incorporate ecosystem protection and restoration, for a variety of reasons, although related concepts such as nature-based solutions and green infrastructure are gaining traction. We explain some of the existing challenges to wider uptake of the ecosystem services concept in water resources management and introduce some promising avenues for research and practice, elaborated in more detail through 12 papers, spanning five continents and a variety of contexts, which make up a Special Issue on “Incorporating Ecosystem Services into Water Resources Management”. Cross-cutting themes include (A) ecosystem services as a flexible concept to communicate with stakeholders; (B) participatory processes to involve stakeholders in research; (C) multiple values, and valuation methods, of water-related services; and (D) applications of decision-support tools. We conclude with a summary of research gaps and emphasize the importance of co-producing knowledge with decision makers and other stakeholders, in order to improve water resources management through the integration of ecosystem services.