Climate change impacts on hydrological science: How the climate change agenda has lowered the scientific level of hydrology (Plenary talk)

For centuries, hydrology has struggled to develop a scientific basis in order to provide both a coherent understanding of hydrological processes and a solid basis for technological applications. While uncertainty dominates in hydrological and other geophysical processes, it has not constituted an obstacle in understanding and application as it has been effectively modelled, mostly in terms of the probability theory. Hydrological modelling, using both deterministic and stochastic tools, has been built on proper epistemological foundations, such as model validation through the split-sample technique and uncertainty quantification of predictions. However in recent years, the needs for climate impact studies and particularly the popularity of catastrophic predictions of the distant future have shook these foundations for the sake of serving the climate change agenda. Non-validated or even invalidated future predictions (or projections) derived by climatic models have been routinely used in hydrology in a full imbalance with the endeavour of improving and validating the modelling of the hydrological processes per se. The presentation includes some examples as well as proposals for improving the current dreary situation.