Assessing the Impacts of Urbanisation on Hydrological Dynamics and Water Quality: A State-of-the-art and Future Challenges

The urban environment exerts complex impacts on both the quantitative and qualitative dynamics of the hydrological cycle, which remain poorly understood. As urban areas across the globe continue to grow and expand laterally into undeveloped landscapes there is a pressing need to better understand the impacts such landscapes have on hydrological dynamics. The quest for a holistic understanding of urban water dynamics requires an integrated and multidisciplinary approach. The advancement of technology has greatly aided our ability to monitor and model urban dynamics with increasing accuracy. This era of technological advancement has expedited our ability to better capture data, monitor change and predict future changes under an array of land-use and climate change scenarios. Satellite technology has aided our ability to track the urban extent and real-time in-situ monitoring has revolutionised the way we capture and observe data. As technology continues to develop, urban hydrologists are increasing well positioned to elucidate the dynamics of urban catchments. The UK NERC Changing Water Cycle programme aims to determine some of the impacts of land-use and climate change impacts on the hydrological cycle and water quality dynamics. Here, we present a state-of-the-art understanding of how urban space impacts on hydrological dynamics and address some of the remaining knowledge gaps. We address the role of technological advancement in improving our ability to capture data of urban water dynamics and outline how the Changing Water Cycle programme aims to build on the major challenges in urban hydrology.