Progress on socio-hydrology

Abstract

In order to promote the development of socio-hydrology research and its application in basin water resources management, it is necessary to carry on a stage review of the researches and studies on socio-hydrology in recent years and recommend future research directions. The paper firstly introduces the establishment of socio-hydrology from the development of hydrology and explains its concept and connotation, then analyses the differences and similarities in content, method and theory between social-hydrology and traditional hydrology, eco-hydrology and hydro-economics; after that summaries the research progress of social-hydrology. The institution, policy and culture have been strengthened in the hydrological researches and some preliminary and exploratory researches have been carried out in case basins, however most of these studies were still based on either traditional hydrology, co-evolution or water resources management, the theory and method of socio-hydrology has not been fully developed. The following research actions are recommended for the future development of social-hydrology: strengthening quantitative research of its societal part, developing the process, historical and comparative socio-hydrology by historical analysis and hydrological reconstruction, and existing case studies; investigating the driving forces of the societal and hydrological systems to explore their dynamic mechanism; introducing the nonlinear dynamic theory to depict the complex feedback mechanism of the coupling human-water system, improving the generalized mathematical expression of the socio-hydrology; and promoting the application of the “big data” and knowledge mining technology in socio-hydrology research.