Hydrological Sciences

Scientific disobedience: where are our catchment boundaries?

Sylvain Kuppel December 16, 2022

Road block in central Munich (Odeonplatz) on Oct 26th, 2022. Photo: Scientist Rebellion

On the night preceding Halloween, somewhere in the main police station of Munich, 15 people appeared one by one before a judge of the local court who notified them their deprivation of liberty, deemed as “indispensable in order to prevent the imminent commission/continuation of a criminal/orderly offence of considerable importance for the general public”. For most of them this preventive custody w ...[Read More]

Imagining Water Differently: Reflections from the Perspective of Critical Geography

Daanish Mustafa November 16, 2022

A canyon the right banks of the Indus River upstream from the sight of the proposed Kalabagh dam.

For us humans, the world, before it is lived, has to be imagined. There is, however, something wrong with the way we have imagined the world if we consider where we are today, in particular in the face of global climate change. Let’s review how we have imagined water from the point of view of critical geography. How we have imagined water so far So far, we have imagined water through the lens of t ...[Read More]

A students’ wish list for field courses that leave no one behind

Léa Rodari and Floreana Miesen November 9, 2022

Léa (left) and Floreana (right) preparing equipment for helicopter transport in the Swiss Alps. Photo: Arthur Mebius

Following an inspiring workshop, as well as our own experiences and informal discussions with students and undergraduate PhD students at the University of Lausanne (see our previous blog post), we collected ideas for a wish list for safe and accessible field classes. It is not exhaustive, and we hope that it will inspire field leaders and students alike. The wish list is summarized here below. It ...[Read More]

Inclusive fieldwork: issues to care about

Floreana Miesen and Léa Rodari November 2, 2022

Field courses can have different styles and range from outdoor lecturing to practical exercises. Photo: Yuniarti Yuska

Imagine it is your first time going on a field trip. After spending hours in the lecture theatre, you are excited to get outside and see those environmental processes that so far you have only seen in graphs and figures. You get off the bus, and the first thing your professor says is: “people less comfortable with climbing on the rocks can just take the notes”, while looking at you and your femal ...[Read More]