Reconnecting Water Resources Research and Practice

Does academic research have practical relevance? A question of translating hydrology research into practice

“…A quick survey of top five hydrology journals (on April 24 2022) shows that university faculty members make up from 83% to 99% of editorial team members (ADWR 99%, WRR 95%, JoH 94%, HESS 94%, HP 83%), with the rest from organizations such as NASA, NOAA and USGS. Similar results were reported for the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management by Sowby and Walski (2021), who noted that 94% of the editors and 88% of reviewers were affiliated with universities and research institutes. There is a clear need to be more inclusive in research publishing to close the gap between research and practice.…”

“…However, searching scholarly literature, understanding the complexity and process of writing peer reviewed journal articles, evaluating and digesting journal content, being familiar with relevant literature and so forth are experiences that are usually obtained in research intensive courses (Amekudzi et al, 2010). End users that are not accustomed to scientific publishing are less likely to be inclined to navigate journal publications, and even those that are acquainted with journal articles may not be familiar with, nor have the time to pursue, recent literature or science advances (Sowby & Walski, 2021). Similarly, many important advances may be hidden behind expensive journal paywalls, perhaps only solve part of a problem, or simply are not reproducible to be of any value.…”

A Practical Statistical Method to Differentiate Inflow and Infiltration in Sanitary Sewer Systems

“…The regression model, built on separate terms for groundwater infiltration, sanitary flow, direct inflow, and delayed inflow, performed well with the case study data. Although not as sophisticated as other statistical models, it is intuitive, simple, and accurate, lending itself well to use by practitioners as well as researchers (Sowby and Walski 2021). Aside from a few justifiable assumptions about groundwater, nothing in the model itself is specific to the study area, but it relies on inputs of local sewer system data and hydrologic data to function.…”

“…Although this research is welcome, the proposed methods and data requirements may be infeasible for the public works employees or consulting engineers who typically carry out I=I studies of individual systems. Accordingly, the methods and data must be accessible to these practitioners (Sowby and Walski 2021). Given the importance of quantifying and controlling I=I, the industry could benefit from a simplified, data-light approach that still offers some statistical rigor and useful fractionation of I=I components.…”

Minimizing Unintended Consequences of Water Resources Decisions

“…One strength of this journal has been numerical modeling, which is well established and well suited to the complexity of modern water problems. But as Sowby and Walski (2021) and Pianosi et al (2020) summarized, certain modeling techniques, like system optimization, are underutilized among practitioners. The potential for numerical models to find unintended consequences is one more reason for engineers outside of academia to learn to use them.…”