About Hydrologie und Wasserbewirtschaftung

Hydrologie und Wasserbewirtschaftung

Hydrologie und Wasserbewirtschaftung (HyWa) is the German scientific journal for hydrology and water-resources management, published by the Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde (BfG), the Federal Institute of Hydrology, in Koblenz. Appearing every two months since 1999 as the successor of the "Deutsche gewässerkundliche Mitteilungen" (1957-1998), the peer-reviewed journal addresses the science and management of water in all its dimensions: hydrology, water-resources management, water and material fluxes, water protection, inland and coastal waters, and groundwater. Listed in the Science Citation Index Expanded and Scopus and published open access at hywa-online.de, HyWa is the forum where Germany's water administrations and water scientists meet, and the journal where the country's water knowledge is gathered, reviewed, and shared.

Overview

HyWa appears bi-monthly as a scientific journal with a dual audience: the researchers in hydrology, hydrogeology, and water management, and the practitioners in the federal and state water administrations. This dual orientation is the journal's distinctive strength: it bridges the science and the practice, publishing the research with the application in view and the administrative experience with the scientific rigor. The contributions cover hydrology, the management of water resources, water and material fluxes and water protection, inland and coastal waters, and groundwater. The peer-review procedure ensures the quality of the contributions, and the listing in the Science Citation Index Expanded, the Journal Citation Reports, and Scopus gives the journal its international scientific standing.

The journal's subtitle, "Hydrology and water resources management, Germany," signals its national role: HyWa is the German hydrology community's journal, the place where the country's water science is published and debated. The bilingual subtitle also invites the international readership: the English-language abstracts and the SCIE indexing make the German water research accessible to the global community. The open-access online version at hywa-online.de makes the content freely available, serving the administrations, the researchers, and the interested public without barriers.

The Federal Institute of Hydrology

The Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde (BfG) in Koblenz, HyWa's publisher, is the German federal government's scientific institution for hydrology: it researches the federal waterways, advises the waterways and shipping administration, and provides the scientific basis for water policy. The institute's location in Koblenz, at the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle, is symbolic: the BfG works where the waters meet. The journal is the institute's window to the water community: the place where the BfG's research meets the administrations' practice and the universities' science.

The BfG's research portfolio, from the Undine information platform's real-time water data to the micropollutant studies to the climate-impact assessments, informs the journal's content. The institute's role in international river commissions, from the Rhine to the Danube to the Elbe, gives the journal its transboundary dimension: water does not respect borders, and HyWa's coverage reflects the international cooperation that water management requires.

History

HyWa's history reaches back to 1957, when the "Deutsche gewässerkundliche Mitteilungen" (DGM) began publication. For 42 volumes until 1998, the DGM served the German water administrations as their scientific bulletin: the place where the hydrological observations, the methodological developments, and the administrative experiences were documented. The DGM's four decades spanned the post-war reconstruction, the environmental awakening of the 1970s, and the reunification's water challenges. In 1999, the journal was relaunched as "Hydrologie und Wasserbewirtschaftung," continuing the volume count at 43: the new name reflected the broadened scope, from the descriptive water science to the management of water resources, and the new design signaled the journal's ambition to serve both the science and the practice.

The relaunch came at a pivotal moment for German water policy: the EU Water Framework Directive, adopted in 2000, revolutionized water management with its river-basin approach and its ecological objectives. HyWa became the forum where the German water community debated the directive's implementation: the monitoring programs, the measures catalogs, the public participation, and the governance structures. The journal's subsequent decades tracked the water challenges of the 21st century: climate change's impacts on water availability and extremes, the flood disasters from the Elbe to the Ahr, the drought summers that emptied the rivers and stressed the water supply, and the micropollutant debates about pharmaceuticals and microplastics in waters.

Coverage and Content

The hydrological contributions address the science of water: precipitation, runoff, evaporation, the water balance, and the modeling of hydrological processes, from the catchment scale to the river basin. The water-management articles cover the administration's core tasks: the management of water resources, the allocation of competing water uses, and the implementation of the Water Framework Directive's programs of measures. The water-quality contributions address water and material fluxes, water protection, and the chemical and ecological status of waters, including the emerging contaminants that challenge the monitoring and the treatment.

The inland and coastal waters coverage spans the rivers, lakes, and transitional and coastal waters: the BfG's own research focus on the federal waterways informs the journal's profile. The navigation-related hydrology, from water levels to sediment transport, addresses the waterways' economic function. The groundwater articles address hydrogeology, groundwater protection, and the interaction of surface and groundwater, critical for the drinking-water supply. The journal's applied orientation distinguishes it from the purely academic hydrology journals: HyWa publishes the science that the water administrations need, the research that informs the permits, the plans, and the policies.

Organization and Ownership

HyWa is published by the Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde (BfG) in Koblenz, the federal authority for hydrology and water-resources research, and issued on behalf of the federal and state water administrations whose practical needs the journal serves. The responsible editor under press law is Thomas Lüllwitz, and the journal is issued on behalf of the federal and state water administrations, its original target group: the Fachverwaltungen des Bundes und der Länder.

The open-access model reflects the public mission: as a federal authority's journal, HyWa serves the public knowledge, not commercial interests. The print ISSN is 1439-1783, the online ISSN 2749-859X. The journal's financing comes from the BfG's institutional budget, freeing it from the commercial pressures of the academic publishing market. This independence is the journal's editorial asset: the contributions are selected for their scientific and practical value, not for their citation potential, and the peer review serves the water community's quality standards rather than the publisher's metrics.

Digital Presence

The online version at hywa-online.de provides the journal's open-access content: the articles are freely available, searchable, and citable. The digital presence serves the journal's dual audience: the researchers access the peer-reviewed articles, and the administration practitioners find the applied knowledge. The listing in the international databases ensures the discoverability: the SCIE and Scopus indexing make HyWa's articles part of the global water-science literature.

For a federal authority's journal, the digital open access is the democratic dimension: the water knowledge, produced with public funds, is available to all. In an era of climate-driven water crises, from the Ahr flood to the drought summers, HyWa's role as the German water community's forum is more critical than ever: the journal documents the science, debates the management, and informs the policies that determine Germany's water future. Seven decades after the "Deutsche gewässerkundliche Mitteilungen" began, and more than two decades after the HyWa relaunch, the journal remains what it has always been: the trusted place where Germany's water knowledge is gathered, reviewed, and shared.