On doing better hydrological science

It is now 2 years since I responded to a discussion about uncertainty estimation at EGU2006 with the commentary 'On Undermining the Science' (OUTS) and the suggestion that Hydrological Processes should become the first hydrological journal to insist that all the papers submitted should include an uncertainty analysis of both measurements and modelling results (Beven, 2006a). That commentary provoked a number of varied responses (Hall et al., 2007; Andreassian et al., 2007; Montanari, 2007; Todini and Mantovan, 2007; Sivakumar, 2008) and the discussion should hopefully continue so that the hydrological community can reflect on the issues raised (though there has been a notable silence all round about imposing a requirement on submitted papers!). Jim Buttle has now asked me to provide a commentary on the commentaries of the OUTS commentary to further this reflection.

[1]  Stuart Hamilton.  Just say NO to equifinality , 2007 .

[2]  Thibault Mathevet,et al.  What is really undermining hydrologic science today? , 2007 .

[3]  K. Beven.  On undermining the science? , 2006 .

[4]  Keith Beven,et al.  A manifesto for the equifinality thesis , 2006 .

[5]  Keith Beven,et al.  Infiltration excess at the Horton Hydrology Laboratory (or not , 2004 .

[6]  P. Mantovan,et al.  Hydrological forecasting uncertainty assessment: Incoherence of the GLUE methodology , 2006 .

[7]  Keith Beven,et al.  Informal likelihood measures in model assessment: Theoretic development and investigation , 2008 .

[8]  Keith Beven,et al.  Multi-period and multi-criteria model conditioning to reduce prediction uncertainty in an application of TOPMODEL within the GLUE framework , 2007 .

[9]  Keith Beven,et al.  Searching for the Holy Grail of scientific hydrology: Q t =( S, R, Δt ) A as closure , 2006 .

[10]  Keith Beven,et al.  Dalton Medal Lecture: How far can we go in distributed hydrological modelling? , 2001 .

[11]  Keith Beven,et al.  Modelling the chloride signal at Plynlimon, Wales, using a modified dynamic TOPMODEL incorporating conservative chemical mixing (with uncertainty) , 2007 .

[12]  Keith Beven,et al.  Towards an alternative blueprint for a physically based digitally simulated hydrologic response modelling system , 2002 .

[13]  Jim W. Hall,et al.  On not undermining the science: coherence, validation and expertise. Discussion of Invited Commentary by Keith Beven Hydrological Processes, 20, 3141–3146 (2006) , 2007 .

[14]  Keith Beven,et al.  Changing ideas in hydrology — The case of physically-based models , 1989 .

[15]  Keith Beven,et al.  The future of distributed models: model calibration and uncertainty prediction. , 1992 .

[16]  K. Beven.  Towards a coherent philosophy for modelling the environment , 2002, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

[17]  Bellie Sivakumar,et al.  Undermining the science or undermining Nature? , 2008 .

[18]  Florian Pappenberger,et al.  Grasping the unavoidable subjectivity in calibration of flood inundation models: A vulnerability weighted approach , 2007 .

[19]  Keith Beven,et al.  TOPMODEL : a critique. , 1997 .

[20]  Alberto Montanari,et al.  What do we mean by ‘uncertainty’? The need for a consistent wording about uncertainty assessment in hydrology , 2007 .

[21]  Keith Beven,et al.  Robert E. Horton and abrupt rises of ground water , 2004 .

[22]  A. Morton.  Mathematical Models: Questions of Trustworthiness , 1993, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.

[23]  Ezio Todini,et al.  Comment on: ‘On undermining the science?’ by Keith Beven , 2007 .

[24]  Keith Beven,et al.  Robert E. Horton's perceptual model of infiltration processes , 2004 .

[25]  Keith Beven,et al.  So just why would a modeller choose to be incoherent , 2008 .