Hydrological process descriptions in journal articles
We found that information about processes could be difficult to extract
from journal articles. Descriptions were often complex and
multi-faceted, with multiple processes described in one sentence.
Process interpretations were mixed with narrative text on observations,
and description of observations often dominated process inference. Such
text makes process information slower to extract and re-use. With an
increasing emphasis on synthesis of process understanding across sites
(Jackisch et al., 2021), efforts to increase data sharing are important.
We recommend the process summary in McGlynn et al. (2002; see Table 2)
as an example of good practice. The article has a separated section that
lists the dominant runoff processes in the watershed. However, we
recognize the difficulty of summarizing process information that
facilitates re-use without losing important detail.