Reducing water-related risk requires models that connect everyday water decisions—on farms, in households, and by utilities and agencies—with how rivers, aquifers, reservoirs, and coasts behave at catchment, basin and transboundary scales. This session focuses on risk (e.g., floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, coastal extremes), who and what are exposed, how vulnerable they are, and the resulting impacts and choices for management and policy. By “local to transboundary scale,” we mean risk-modelling frameworks that connect local water practices and infrastructure operations to basin-to-transboundary hazard, exposure, vulnerability and impact outcomes across spatial, temporal and institutional scales, using explicit up/downscaling and cross-scale validation to support decisions under uncertainty.

We explicitly welcome research advances in socio-hydrology and, in addition, socio-meteorology—the study of how society and atmospheric processes interact (e.g., weather forecast design and use, warning response, risk perception). Socio-meteorology is a natural partner to socio-hydrology where weather information and human action shape water risks, from impact-based forecasting and anticipatory actions. Studies that analyze the interconnected dynamics of hydrological and meteorological processes, water use, land management, hydraulic infrastructure, climate change, ecological/environmental flows, and socio-economic drivers are also encouraged.

Socio-hydrology & feedbacks: co-evolution of people, water and infrastructure; adaptation/maladaptation cycles.
Socio-meteorology & warnings: weather forecast usability, communication, protective action; links to water risk and operations.
Interconnected dynamics: hydrology, meteorology, water use, land management, infrastructure, climate change, ecological/environmental flows, socioeconomic drivers
Scale-bridging methods: up/downscaling micro decisions to basin/transboundary outcomes; cross-scale validation.
Decision support & governance: robust/adaptive planning under uncertainty; equity and transboundary cooperation in risk reduction.