Frontiers in Water

Mission

Frontiers in Water is an open access journal that publishes novel interdisciplinary research covering a broad spectrum of water related topics, which is rigorously and transparently peer reviewed for scientific accuracy. Relevant topics include water in various contexts such as built environment, critical zone, water bodies such as rivers and lakes, groundwater and cryosphere, and water related outcomes such as public health and infectious diseases. It welcomes theoretical, analytical and computational advances; artificial intelligence applications including for example deep learning developments; experimental and observational investigations; advances in sensing, measurements and other data collection approaches pertaining to physical, chemical, biological, ecological and human dimensions, and investigations based thereon; and advances in policy, economics and governance pertaining to water.

Climate change and its manifestation in the water cycle across the globe in the form of droughts to floods, rapidly increasing population and associated demand for water, demographic shifts to urban environments and access to limited local water resources, intensification of agriculture and associated water use, and economic growth driven changes in land use are driving fundamental shifts in spatial and temporal patterns of demand, supply, and availability of water resources.

The stress on water resources from local to global scale and the resulting consequences on human systems from public health to economic growth, sustainability of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and preservation of essential functions provided by the critical zone are being exacerbated by the increasing interdependence between these drivers. As the world races to a population of 10 billion in a little over 30 years, we will need to develop new paradigms for understanding, managing, and using this precious resource. Solution modalities need to be rooted in deeper scientific understanding that can detect nuanced patterns and trends in diverse environments, anchored on evidence provided by emerging data streams, and predictions of emergent dynamics under the confluence of seemingly unrelated drivers. Societal institutions, civic societies, and governance models will need to strongly integrate co-evolving water related constraints to develop effective solutions.