Abstract:
Socio-hydrology research is concerned with the understanding of how humanity interacts with water
resources. The purpose of this study was to assess the disparity between global and African trends as well
as developments in the research domain of socio-hydrology. From the viewpoint of a multitude of research
themes, multi-author collaborations between African and international researchers and the number of
publications produced globally, the results reveal that the field of socio-hydrology is still underdeveloped
and yet nascent. At a global level, the USA, China, and the Netherlands have the highest number of
scientific publications, while in Africa, South Africa dominates, although these scientific publications are
significantly much lower than the global output. The output of scientific publications on socio-hydrology
research from Africa increased from 2016, with significant output reached in 2019. Water management
and supply, hydrological modelling, flood monitoring as well as policies and decision-making, are some
of the dominant themes found through keywords co-occurrence analysis. These main keywords may be
considered as the foci of research in socio-hydrology. Although socio-hydrology research is still in the
early stages of development in Africa, the cluster and emerging themes analysis provide opportunities
for research in Africa that will underpin new frontiers of the research agenda encompassing topics such
as the (1) impacts of climate change on socio-hydrology; (2) influence of socio-hydrology on water
resources such as surface water and groundwater; (3) benefits of socio-hydrological models on river
basins and (4) role of socio-hydrology in economic sectors such as agriculture. Overall, this study points
to a need to advance socio-hydrology research in Africa in a bid to address pressing water crises that
affect sustainable development as well as to understand the feedback mechanisms and linkages between
water resources and different sectors of society.
