Let’s look back on the first 22 HS blog posts published since our first Welcome to the HS division blog post in March. First and foremost, thanks to all the authors who contributed to the successful start of our blog in 2019! We hope to continue with the fortnightly publication of posts covering various topics related to hydrological sciences. If you have an idea for a topic, would like to write something yourself or missed something so far, please reach out to us. This blog is run by and for the hydrology community – so please join us, have fun reading and writing the blog posts!
How many people visited the HS blog in 2019?
There has been a steady increase of readers since we started the HS blog in March. The monthly visits almost doubled from about 330 visits per month between April to August to more than 600 visits per month in September and November (Figure 1). On average, people spent one to two minutes per visit on the blog posts.
Figure 1: Monthly visits of the HS blog, which started in March 2019.
Which have been the most read posts so far?
Among the five most read posts, four have been the opinion pieces. We counted most reads for the post by Francesca Pianosi about “All models are wrong but…”. The second most read post was another opinion piece on “Science as Type II Fun” by Caitlyn Hall, and the third and fifth were the posts on Hydrologists Join Youth-Led #GlobalClimateStrike and “Everything is interaction and reciprocal”, both by Matthias Sprenger. The recent post by Maria-Helena Ramos on SciArt & Hydrology, with an interview of Louise Arnal, ranks fourth in the list of reading counts.
Who is reading our blog?
Figure 2: World map showing from where visitors read the HS blog.
Most of our over 3,400 visitors are from the USA, but we generally have readers from around the world (Figure 2). About half of all visits came from Europe with most readers coming from the UK and Germany (Figure 3). These two countries were as well contributing in most of the blog posts, and probably attracted therefore relatively many readers. Finland, Italy, and Ecuador, countries from which hydrologists contributed with blog posts to the “Featured Catchment Series”, also count above-average readers of the HS blog. These statistics clearly show that advertising the blog posts by the guest authors works well and enables a wider reach of the HS blog.
Figure 3: Map showing from where within Europe visitors read the HS blog.
How do people find out about the blog?
Figure 4: From which social media sites visitors came.
Over 900 visitors of our HS blog came from social media platforms. We have been most successful on Twitter to attract readers, with almost 75% of all social media interactions coming from there (Figure 4). Facebook and LinkedIn played a minor role in attracting readers though. Several visitors came from personal or institutional webpages of blog authors that linked to the blog posts. However, most of the visitors followed links from related EGU webpages (https://blogs.egu.eu/).
All the statistics come from the EGU Piwik Analytics account.
Have you missed any of the HS posts? Here below is a brief recap for you.
Several posts were related to the great annual event for EGU and the HS community: the GA 2019 in Vienna. To help our members follow this busy week, full of things to see and talks to give or listen to, we posted about the main unmissable events at the GA, as well as the main discussions held during the HS Business Meeting. We also had the opportunity to read about the experience of some members during the GA, and to get feedback from EGU sponsored meetings that are organized outside the GA. You can check all this here:
- Events at the General Assembly
- Updates from the HS Division Meeting
- EGU is a bit like a music festival: first time experience of an ECS in hydrology
- A personal view on EGU 2019 – an edition like no other
- Meeting and networking outside the EGU GA: feedback on the 2019 EGU Leonardo conference
We also publish opinions and reflections from our members:
- “All models are wrong but…”, by Francesca Pianosi
- “Everything is interaction and reciprocal”, by Matthias Sprenger
Two HS blog series started successfully in 2019: Talking Hydrology and Featured Catchment. You can check what was posted through the links indicated in the series titles. More to come in 2020!
- Talking hydrology: an interview with Hjalmar Laudon on hydrological research at the Krycklan catchment
- Talking hydrology: an interview with Jana von Freyberg on her work in the Rietholzbach catchment
- Featured catchment series: The North is not forgotten!
- Featured catchment series: Disentangling the ecohydrology of a tropical hotspot!
- Featured catchment series: The Rio Vauz catchment – long-term hydrologic observations in the Dolomites
We have also cross-posted with the Young Hydrological Society, highlighting some of their interviews. You can check them all here:
- YHS interview Thorsten Wagener: being the head of a research group is “a bit like being a football coach”
- YHS interview Martyn P. Clark: “rainfall-runoff modelling, per se, is dead”
- YHS interview Serena Ceola: shedding light on interrelations between human impacts and river networks
Finally, hydrological sciences can also be fun, artistic and multi-disciplinary, making us think and act upon different social challenges. Have you read these posts?
- SciArt & Hydrology: how about having an art exhibition as part of your hydrology PhD thesis?
- Science as Type II Fun
- Hydrologists Join Youth-Led #GlobalClimateStrike
- Gender balance in the HS division- some personal thoughts
- Quality through Equality – tackling gender issues in hydrology
We hope you have enjoyed our posts and we look forward to reading your contribution in 2020.
Meanwhile, we wish you all a Happy 2020!
The Editorial Team
