Dear Colleagues,

Climate change, driven primarily by global warming, is having a profound impact on the Earth's hydrological cycle and the management of water resources. The hydrological cycle, which encompasses processes such as precipitation, evapotranspiration, water storage changes, and runoff, plays a critical role in maintaining the availability and quality of freshwater resources. However, altering climate patterns are disrupting this delicate balance, leading to a range of challenges for water resources management worldwide.

Under the influence of changing climate, population growth, urbanization, land use changes, and poor water management practices, water scarcity has become a pressing issue, particularly in arid, semi-arid, and subtropical regions. The consequences of water scarcity are far-reaching, affecting various sectors, including agriculture, industry, and domestic water supply. Moreover, projections indicate that, by 2025, approximately one in four individuals on Earth may experience water scarcity, highlighting the urgency of addressing this issue.

In this Special Issue, we are looking for original scientific contributions on the hydrological cycle and water resources management, with topics including but not limited to contributions of climate change to the hydrological cycle, changes of hydrological variables (precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, etc.), GRACE application in hydrology, impact of hydrological drought and flood, vegetation phenology  and ecohydrological effects, meteorological and hydrological drought evolution, advances in hydrological forecasting, monitoring of groundwater storage, remote sensing of climate extremes, and new perspective from SWOT satellite.

In addition, we dedicate this Special Issue to Prof. Jianyu Liu, who died of cancer in June 2023. He was an expert in climate change and hydrology. He had organized a Special Issue titled "The Water Cycle and Climate Change" with us in this journal, https://www.mdpi.com/journal/atmosphere/special_issues/Water_Cycle_Climate

Dr. Yulong Zhong
Prof. Dr. Shuang Zhu
Dr. Dongdong Kong
Dr. Peng Yang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Atmosphere is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• climate change
• water resources management
• precipitation
• streamflow
• evapotranspiration
• terrestrial water storage
• climate variability

Planned paper 1:

Tetative title: The northern flood and southern drought pattern in China during the 2020-2022 La Niña period observed by GRACE-FO satellite
Authors（with email）: Wei Chen (chenwei@hbuas.edu.cn)
Tentative submitting date: November 4th