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Hilary McMillan

@mcmillanhydro.bsky.social
1K followers 629 following 42 posts

Professor of Water Resources at San Diego State University. Watershed hydrology and hydrological processes.

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Reposted by Hilary McMillan
Kristian G. Andersen @kgandersen.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
"The struggle of figuring out the right analysis approach, wrestling with an unexpected result, or trying to turn a messy set of findings into a coherent story is not an obstacle to learning. It _is_ the learning". Required reading for AI in the lab: blekhman.substack.com/p/you-need-t...
blekhman.substack.com
You need to make AI guidelines for your lab
Here's why you should, and how to start
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Reposted by Hilary McMillan
Steve Carpenter @steve-carpenter.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
New analysis in ECOSYSTEMS identifies all headwater streams of continental U.S.; 77% of U.S. network is headwater streams. doi.org/10.1007/s100... @monicagturner.bsky.social
doi.org
Identifying Headwater Streams across the Conterminous United States - Ecosystems
Headwater streams play critical roles in hydrologic and biogeochemical processes and functions, yet their spatial distribution and land cover context remain poorly understood at continental scales, an...
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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
An ephemeral stream valley, southwestern Nebraska, after heavy rain (left) and four days later. View upstream.
A small valley filled with water that spreads across the entire valley floor.Same valley as the other photo, with no water visible at all. The grass in the middle of the valley is flattened and has some mud on it.
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Kārikiōrangi @sharonm.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
kakapo chick feeding live! www.doc.govt.nz/our-work/kak...
doc.govt.nz
Kākāpō Cam: Live from the nest
Watch Rakiura, a female kākāpō, live from her nest on Whenua Hou/Codfish Island, a small, predator free island in southern New Zealand.
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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
Same as it ever was.
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Thanks for the share - and here's a link to view the article: rdcu.be/eXM3l
rdcu.be
Forest streamflow driven by soils, topography and previous rains
Nature Water - Forests cover almost a third of earth’s land and supply high-quality streamflow and groundwater. A global synthesis of forested catchments provides surprising insights into the...
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Reposted by Hilary McMillan
Ross Woods @rosswoodskiwi.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
One final reminder! Bettina Schaefli and I warmly invite you to submit abstracts to a new EGU session A strong focus on theory in times of big data HS2.2.5 New Developments in Hydrological Synthesis Abstract submission: www.egu26.eu/session/55911
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Julian Olden @oldenfish.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
National assessment of river protection in the U.S. Article: doi.org/10.1038/s418... Policy Brief: doi.org/10.1038/s418... Rivers Explorer: map.myriver.americanrivers.org Collaboration b/t American Rivers, Conservation Science Partners, Univ WA @americanrivers.bsky.social Thread 👇 | DM for PDF
Image of river protection status in the United States
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
I wrote a commentary discussing Daniele's huge new global synthesis of controls on hydrological processes in forested catchments: read it here: rdcu.be/eXTrq . Some surprising findings on the importance of overland flow, soils and antecedent conditions.
rdcu.be
Forest streamflow driven by soils, topography and previous rains
Nature Water - Forests cover almost a third of earth’s land and supply high-quality streamflow and groundwater. A global synthesis of forested catchments provides surprising insights into the...
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Reposted by Hilary McMillan
UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) @ukceh.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
When did hydrologists become historians? #FDRI has released 35 years of hi-res data from the Plynlimon Research Catchments! Read about our process of unearthing 35 years of measurements and what it means for understanding river processes: f.mtr.cool/grqzmwiqsd 🧪
Map of the Plynlimon catchments, streams, and the monitoring sites in this dataset
© - UKCEH
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Bike commute! 💙
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Reposted by Hilary McMillan
John Hammond @hydrohammond.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
@rarakihydro.bsky.social leads an exiting new preprint that maps dominant hydrologic processes across >14k US watersheds using streamflow signatures + ML. It’s been such fun following Ryoko and Hilary’s leadership alongside Admin, Anne and Gemma. egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/20...
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Ryoko Araki @rarakihydro.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
💧 Check out McMillan lab research at #AGU25! @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social. Shoutout to @alessing26.bsky.social for the cute flyer! 💧 Visit runoff generation processes poster session on Monday PM by @aliva-nanda.bsky.social, @nitinsingh.bsky.social, @kjmcguire.bsky.social, Bryn Stewart and me!
Ad flyer listing presentations from McMillan Hydrology Lab for AGU25 conference
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Reposted by Hilary McMillan
Dr. Drew Brayshaw 🌊🪨 @drewbrayshaw.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
How about some real actual hydrology? 🌊 West Kettle River near Rhone Sep 2 2021 ~ 0.53 m3/s typical late season low flow Apr 20 2025 ~53 m3/s ramping up to Q2 at start of freshet
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Thank you for featuring our paper, and for all your work on Hydrology Paper of the Day!
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KinarNicholas.bsky.social @kinarnicholas.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Hydrology Paper of the Day @iflscience.com on weird hydrology: rivers that flow in different drainage basins; why some rivers flow in two directions or have a reversed direction of flow; a lake that drains into two oceans; river capture and geological controls; modelling; and management challenges.
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EGU Hydrological Sciences Division @hs.egu.eu · 04/04/2025
OUT NOW: A fantastic new read for hydrologists 📚: a wrap-up of the Panta Rhei scientific decade of @iahs-aish.bsky.social. Between 2013 and 2022, it explored links between changes in hydrology and society. 🌍 In this paper, Heidi Kreibich and her colleagues present ten years of progress. 👇
tandfonline.com
Panta Rhei: a decade of progress in research on change in hydrology and society
To better understand the increasing human impact on the water cycle and the feedbacks between hydrology and society, the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) organized the scie...
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
Yes! Find the link to the interactive map at github.com/RY4GIT/perce.... CUAHSI is making a new map with download capability at hydroprocess.cuahsi.io, but there are still a few teething troubles so you can also see our legacy GIS map (same info, no download) sdsugeo.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboa...
github.com
GitHub - RY4GIT/perceptual-models: Repository for the perceptual model database and interactive map
Repository for the perceptual model database and interactive map - RY4GIT/perceptual-models
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
Accompanied by an excellent commentary from Daniele Penna, www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
Climate and landscape drive catchment hydrological processes at the global scale - Nature Water
Understanding catchment hydrological functioning across the world is critical to providing theoretical support for large-domain model applications. A global assessment of catchment perceptual models r...
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
New paper! After much work by me and my students we created a global database of hundreds of research watersheds, and perceptual models of their hydrologic processes. We use the data to test classic theories on how climate and landscape control dominant processes. www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
Global patterns in observed hydrologic processes - Nature Water
This study presents a global, searchable database of 400 research watersheds with published descriptions of dominant hydrologic flow pathways, supporting efficient hypothesis testing to investigate em...
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Daniele Penna @danielepenna.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
Today we were in the Re della Pietra #catchment danielepenna.wixsite.com/redellapietra. We installed a new #weather station and showed the site to some private #stakeholders. And this little paper came out right today. rdcu.be/efM8w Congrats @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social and coauthors!
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
Thank you John for highlighting our work!
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Where does macroplastic pollution in rivers come from? In urban San Diego, most is dumped directly in the river corridor. Volunteer clean up efforts are essential, but plastic stored in the river keeps increasing. Paper from MS student TJ Palmer agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Quantifying Sources, Sinks and Mitigation of Macroplastic and Other River Debris: A Trash Balance Model
We developed a holistic model of riverine macroplastic and debris sources, sinks and transport dynamics for urban rivers Much more debris is directly deposited on the floodplain by dumping and ab...
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
Hope to see CSU students at this meeting! I will be attending alongside graduate students from SDSU Geography
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
Are you a graduate student or postdoc interested in the GRS/GRC Catchment hydrology conferences this June? GRS Chair Ally Jacoby has just published this first-time attendees guide! younghs.com/2025/03/03/a...
younghs.com
A First-Time Attendee’s Guide to the 2025 Catchment Science Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) and Conference (GRC)
Written by Ally Jacoby When I first heard the Gordon Research Conference on Catchment Science described as ‘hydrology summer camp’, I was immediately sold on going. I attended for the first time in…
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Reposted by Hilary McMillan
KinarNicholas.bsky.social @kinarnicholas.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Hydrology Paper of the Day @rarakihydro.bsky.social on how soil moisture metrics and observations improve the outputs of a rainfall-runoff model: evaluation of model performance with hydrologic signatures; application to watersheds in New Zealand and the US; partitioning; and calibration.
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Li Li (李黎) @lireactivewater.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Talk abstracts for Catchment Science Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) before GRC are due on 3/15/25. Submit early for a talk! Exciting venue for science + networking for early careers! Keynote speaker Dr Ryan Emanuel on Environmental Justice. @waterpotential.bsky.social www.grc.org/catchment-sc...
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
I'm really looking forward to this talk!
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
This was also my first time bringing students to this meeting and they had an amazing time feeling welcomed by the field and getting to meet other senior scientists. I am already excited for next time.”
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
“This is my absolute favorite conference and this year was amazing - incredible set of talks and a great way to re-energize about my science and network after COVID. [cont]
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
The research discussed was cutting edge and diverse but presented in a way so that scientists of all niches could understand.”
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
See these quotes from last time: “This was the best conference I have ever been to. I have never been able to get to know so many other scientists so well and have such stimulating discussion and great feedback on my research. [cont]
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
Remember to apply and register for this summer's Catchment Science GRC! The best conference you'll ever go to. Deadlines coming up on March 16 for graduate students to submit their oral abstracts to the GRS. www.grc.org/catchment-sc...
Poster advertising GRC Catchment Science Conference, dates 22-27 June 2025, and accompanying GRS conference for Young Researchers 21-22 June 2025.
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Ryoko Araki @rarakihydro.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
My 1st PhD chapter is (finally) out! 🥳 We have tested soil moisture as an objective metric in a Next-Gen rainfall-runoff model—a Conceptual Functional Equivalent (CFE) of WRF-Hydro. Thank you my mentor @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social and Dr. Fred Ogden for their guidance! doi.org/10.1111/1752...
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
Amongst all of this, our students are still publishing excellent papers. My recent Masters student Annie Holt, now at NWS, shows how geologic age and (region-dependent) wetland fraction metrics can be used to improve our predictions of baseflow in watersheds across the U.S.: doi.org/10.1002/hyp....
doi.org
New Predictors for Hydrologic Signatures: Wetlands and Geologic Age Across Continental Scales
This article contributes to the longstanding effort to use landscape metrics to predict streamflow dynamics. We introduce two new metrics describing wetlands and geologic age and use random forests t....
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Christa Kelleher @hydrochrista.bsky.social · 02/01/2025
A little bit delayed, but I hear it's picking up over here so sending this out into the world: our Lafayette team including Rachel Hurley (now grad student at WPI), Dave Brandes, and me put out this piece on flashiness across the Mid-Atlantic: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Drivers and Buffers of Stream Flashiness in the Mid‐Atlantic United States
In this study, we investigated flashiness across 195 Mid-Atlantic sites, each within one of seven different physiographic regions. Our findings identified several drivers and buffers of flashiness, e...
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
Thank you @kinarnicholas.bsky.social for featuring our paper!
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
Thanks for your interest. Yes, here we are looking at rivers rather than lakes or oceans
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Kyle Thiem @kylethiem.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Heads up for the Weather Community! You can now find NOAA (@noaa.gov), NOAA Climate (@climate.noaa.gov) & NWS HQ (@nws.noaa.gov; still being set up) on Bluesky!
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Interested in headwater streams? Headwaters make up 77% of global river networks, but have fewer gauges, less accurate models and lesser protections than large rivers. See our review led by @goldenwater.bsky.social at www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
Advancing the science of headwater streamflow for global water protection - Nature Water
Despite their substantial contributions to watershed resilience, headwater streams are becoming increasingly imperilled. This Perspective summarizes the status of headwater streamflow information and ...
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Terry McGlynn @hormiga.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
What it has been like, living a few blocks away from the devastated area.
open.substack.com
A report from the 2025 Los Angeles fire apocalypse
just my personal account
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Heather Golden @goldenwater.bsky.social · 02/01/2025
An incredible group of scientists and colleagues joined forces to support improved data, modeling, and analyses of headwater streamflow to improve surface water protections globally. Check out our paper, hot off the presses, in @naturewaterjnl.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
Advancing the science of headwater streamflow for global water protection - Nature Water
Despite their substantial contributions to watershed resilience, headwater streams are becoming increasingly imperilled. This Perspective summarizes the status of headwater streamflow information and ...
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Doerthe Tetzlaff @tetzlaffecohyd.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
R u a female ECR (MSc, PhD, postdoc)? We offer Visiting Fellowships in Hydrology/Ecohydrology in my research group in Berlin, Germany on hydrological/ ecohydrological topics: www.igb-berlin.de/tetzlaff Fellowships 2000€ for 2-4 wks. Send letter of motivation & CV to abteilungsleitung1@igb-berlin.de
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
It was great to see you! I was very pleased with my AGU souvenir - a loaf from the excellent sourdough bakery near the conference centre
The remaining half of a loaf of 'rustica' style sourdough bread, on a wooden chopping board
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
These stories really make me appreciate my dept's approach to service -- you can express a preference, but total number of committee/service roles is counted up and divided equally by the chair
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
Science is good for your health! I walked 28 miles at #AGU24
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Dr. Lynne Elkins @ljelkins.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
30,000!! whoa.
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Laura Lautz @llautz.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
The full solicitation for the new Water, Landscape, and Critical Zone processes (WaLCZ) program is out! Come by the NSF booth (1101) at #AGU24 between 10:30 am and 1 pm to talk with me about it! new.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
new.nsf.gov
Water, Landscape, and Critical Zone Processes (WaLCZ)
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Hilary McMillan @mcmillanhydro.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Today's AGU vibe
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