Toward Systematic Literature Reviews in Hydrological Sciences

Abstract

Systematic literature reviews can provide an objective global overview of background research on hydrological questions. This study presents a methodology to ensure rigor, traceability, and replicability in evaluating state-of-the-art hydrological topics. The proposed methodology involved systematic, objective, and explicit steps. Strategies with defined selection criteria were used to search the relevant literature comprehensively and accurately on hydrological uncertainty as a case study. The most pertinent documents were filtered to build a critical state-of-the-art synthesis for evaluating their quality and relevance. This methodology allows systematic literature analysis to provide an objective summary of the evidence, with a structured procedure for state-of-the-art reviews, which promotes transparency in the search, unlike typical review papers that lack reproducible methodologies that may lead to obtaining a potentially subjective reference selection. Consequently, the proposed methodology improves reference reliability and study reproducibility while generalizing the methodology. This procedure has proven effective and practical for building state-of-the-art research in the study case (State-of-the-art Uncertainty in Hydrological forecasting from 2017 to 2023) and can be considered a relevant tool in hydrology and other STEM disciplines, providing a rigorous and transparent approach that enhances evidence quality and reliability.