Hydrologic Science Opportunities to Better Understand Floods: A Community Perspective

Abstract

We synthesize community priorities for advancing flood science and flood decision support over the next decade. We argue that useful information for flood monitoring and forecasting require integrated observations and models that quantify where water is, how much is stored, how fast it moves, how watershed conditions prime flood response, and how river, floodplain, and coastal geometry control inundation. We identify four priority science gaps: topo-bathymetry, surface water dynamics, antecedent land-surface conditions, and high-resolution precipitation forcing for flash floods. Progress will require sustaining trusted baseline observations while investing in targeted innovation, model-observation fusion, and decision-ready products developed with operational partners. Together, these advances will improve early warning, emergency response, infrastructure planning, recovery, insurance, zoning, and long-term flood-risk reduction. This white paper is an outcome of a community-led, community-engaged effort to elevate hydrologic science opportunities which would have significant benefit to support decision-making for drought, floods, water quality, water supply and water demand.