Discussion of “Guiding principles for hydrologists conducting interdisciplinary research and fieldwork with participants”

ABSTRACT

Rangecroft et al. (2021) offer a set of principles for conducting interdisciplinary research and fieldwork with participants from a hydrologist perspective. In this invited paper, I present some thoughts from a social scientist’s perspective, not to disagree with their points but to add to them. Specifically, I use my sociology background and interdisciplinary experiences to reflect on qualitative evaluative criteria, power dynamics in the scientific community, barriers to interdisciplinary research, and approaches to overcome obstacles. Individual researchers can educate themselves about other disciplines, and there are also opportunities for institutional change on the part of universities, funders, and journals to support interdisciplinary work. I am enthusiastic about the emerging hydrology–social science collaborations I am witnessing. Indeed, I hope that more of my social science colleagues will see the unlimited potential of studying water systems with hydrologists and engineers, as I have.

KEYWORDS:

• interdisciplinary
• social science
• qualitative research

Editor A. Castellarin; Associate Editor H. Kreibich

Editor A. Castellarin; Associate Editor H. Kreibich

Acknowledgements

I thank Jenia Mukerjee for her encouraging comments on a previous draft. I am grateful to and impressed by the four reviewers who took the time to read my paper and respectfully suggest what to clarify for the hydrology audience.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Sally Rangecroft, Melanie Rohse, Eddie W. Banks, Rosie Day, Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Theresa Frommen, Yasunori Hayashi, Britta Höllermann, Karen Lebek, Elena Mondino, Maria Rusca, Marthe Wens & Anne F. Van Loon (2021) Guiding principles for hydrologists conducting interdisciplinary research and fieldwork with participants, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 66:2, 214–225, doi:10.1080/02626667.2020.1852241.