Articles | Volume 23, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-393-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-393-2019
Education and communication
 | 
22 Jan 2019
Education and communication |  | 22 Jan 2019

Flooded by jargon: how the interpretation of water-related terms differs between hydrology experts and the general audience

Gemma J. Venhuizen, Rolf Hut, Casper Albers, Cathelijne R. Stoof, and Ionica Smeets

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Status: closed
Status: closed
AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment
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Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision
ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (21 Sep 2018) by Erwin Zehe
AR by Rolf Hut on behalf of the Authors (19 Oct 2018)
ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (02 Nov 2018) by Erwin Zehe
RR by Charlotte Kaempf (08 Dec 2018)
ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (10 Dec 2018) by Erwin Zehe
AR by Rolf Hut on behalf of the Authors (17 Dec 2018)
ED: Publish as is (19 Dec 2018) by Erwin Zehe
AR by Rolf Hut on behalf of the Authors (07 Jan 2019)
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Short summary
Do experts attach the same meaning as laypeople to terms often used in hydrology such as "river", "flooding" and "downstream"? In this study a survey was completed by 34 experts and 119 laypeople to answer this question. We found that there are some profound differences between experts and laypeople: words like "river" and "river basin" turn out to have a different interpretation between the two groups. However, when using pictures there is much more agreement between the groups.