Hydrological Sciences

Being a Hydrology Coach: Some Ideas for Teaching College Hydrology Classes

JP Gannon October 31, 2024

JP Gannon in one of his classes, original published here

Teaching the next generation of scientists, engineers, and planners hydrology may sometimes feel like a chore, but it might be the most impactful thing we do! So, I think it is always worth taking a look to see if we can optimize our approaches. What follows are some ideas that have shaped my teaching strategies over the last decade. I don’t pretend to be an authority on this stuff, but I’ve curat ...[Read More]

Public engagement in science: how to position ourselves?

Bettina Schaefli May 30, 2024

Back of my laptop, conveying some of my values

The recent student protests against the war in Gaza reminded all of us that being a member of the academic community requires us to reflect upon our role in society. In Switzerland, the university occupations (see SwissInfo) led to several open letter-type reactions from academic staff, either supporting the protests or on the contrary, recalling that scientists should abstain from activism. This ...[Read More]

Overlooked tips for the lost art of fieldwork

Natalie Ceperley February 29, 2024

The author finalizing installation of a meteorological station in the Vallon de Nant, just in the kink of time (before winter truly begins).

Not so long ago, almost all hydrologic data depended almost exclusively on fieldwork. Today, sure, you can download data from repositories, there are satellites that beam you magic numbers that you can interpret to give you almost any variable, and some (less than we might hope) long-term monitoring has been outsourced to governments (or in some cases to citizens with sensors). But somewhere in ...[Read More]

How far can we take the DORA rules?

Bettina Schaefli October 5, 2023

DORA stands for Declaration on Research Assessment, also known as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. The declaration was developed back in 2012 during the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in San Francisco and has become a worldwide initiative since then. The country where you are currently reading this post has most probably signed the declaration (the cou ...[Read More]