Hydrology and earth system sciences

Hydrology and earth system sciences is published by European Geosciences Union and is in Zone 1 of Earth Sciences in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition, Top journal). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Hydrology and Watershed Management Studies, Flood Risk Assessment and Management and Climate variability and models, together about 40.1% of its articles. Its main subfields are Global and Planetary Change. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS) is a not-for-profit international two-stage open-access journal for the publication of original research in hydrology. The discussion and peer review of submitted preprints are handled on EGUsphere, EGU's preprint repository. Final papers, upon acceptance, appear in HESS (see interactive review process). HESS encourages and supports fundamental and applied research that advances the understanding of hydrological systems, their role in providing water for ecosystems and society, and the role of the water cycle in the functioning of the Earth system. A multi-disciplinary approach is encouraged that broadens the hydrological perspective and the advancement of hydrological science through integration with other cognate sciences and cross-fertilization across disciplinary boundaries. HESS, therefore, aims to serve not only the hydrological science community but all earth and life scientists, water engineers, and water managers, who wish to publish original findings on the interactions and feedbacks between the governing processes of the water cycle and processes governing atmospheric circulation and climate, bio-geochemical cycling, dynamics, and resilience of ecosystems and socio-economy. The scope of HESS encompasses the following: the role of physical, chemical, and biological processes in the cycling of continental water in all its phases, including dissolved and particulate matter, at all scales, from the micro-scale processes of soil water to the global-scale processes underpinning hydro-climatology; the study of the spatial and temporal characteristics of the global water resources (solid, liquid, and vapour) and related budgets, in all compartments of the Earth system (atmosphere, oceans, estuaries, rivers, lakes, and land masses), including water stocks, residence times, interfacial fluxes, and the pathways between various compartments; the study of interactions with human activity of all the processes, budgets, fluxes, and pathways as outlined above, and the options for influencing them in a sustainable manner, particularly in relation to floods, droughts, desertification, land degradation, eutrophication, and other aspects of global change. The journal publishes research articles, technical notes, opinion papers, book reviews, articles on high-level scientific failures, cutting-edge case studies, brief communications, studies on earth science education and communication, and comments on papers published prev

From the journal's Aims & Scope

Research area (LetPub): Geosciences, Multidisciplinary

Editorial board by country: 4 in mainland China (about 13%); most named United States 5, Australia 5, Mainland China 4, Italy 3, Germany 2 (32 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website · 2026-09-29

CAS Journal Ranking

Database indexing

SCIEScopusDOAJLetPub

International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub

Indexing the journal's website claims

Web of SciencePublisher website

Other: Google Scholar

As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.

Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.

Impact

Impact factor

6.61LetPub · 2026-09-13

CiteScore 2026-06

10.5LetPub · 2026-09-13

CiteScore (publisher) 2025

10.5Publisher website · 2026-09-29

SJR 2026-06

2.04LetPub · 2026-09-13

SNIP 2026-06

1.82LetPub · 2026-09-13

h-index

107LetPub · 2026-09-13

h-index

234OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

i10-index

5,055OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

2-year mean citedness

7.44OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

Self-citation rate

8.6%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Share of gold OA articles

100%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Volume

Articles per year

343LetPub · 2026-09-13

Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.

Average review time (community reports)

about 24 monthsLetPub · 2026-09-13

Average acceptance (community reports)

Fairly hardLetPub · 2026-09-13

Submission to publication (journal-reported)

about 40 weeksDOAJ · 2026-10-25

Peer review

Open peer reviewDOAJ

Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.

• APC information ↗DOAJ
• Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
• Open access statement ↗DOAJ
• License & copyright ↗DOAJ

The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.

Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.

Publisher

European Geosciences Union

Country or region

GERMANY

Language

English

Frequency

Bimonthly

ISSN

1027-5606

Electronic ISSN

1607-7938

Official links

• Journal homepage ↗DOAJ
• Submission system ↗LetPub
• Author guidelines ↗LetPub
• Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
• APC information ↗DOAJ
• Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
• Open access statement ↗DOAJ
• License & copyright ↗DOAJ
• Peer review process ↗LetPub
• Editorial board ↗LetPub
• Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ