Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 5675–5695, 2018 https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-5675-2018 © Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Stochastic hydrogeology’s biggest hurdles analyzed and its big blind spot Yoram Rubin1, Ching-Fu Chang1, Jiancong Chen1, Karina Cucchi1, Bradley Harken1, Falk Heße2, and Heather Savoy1 1Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, USA 2Computational Hydrosystems, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), 04318 Leipzig, Germany Correspondence: Yoram Rubin (
[email protected]) Received: 28 May 2018 – Discussion started: 14 June 2018 Accepted: 30 September 2018 – Published: 2 November 2018 Abstract. This paper considers questions related to the adop- 1 Introduction tion of stochastic methods in hydrogeology. It looks at fac- tors affecting the adoption of stochastic methods including A key element in the discussion on adoption of stochastic environmental regulations, financial incentives, higher edu- hydrogeology (SH), or the lack of it, is the apparent discon- cation, and the collective feedback loop involving these fac- nect between theory and practice. The root causes for the tors. We begin by evaluating two previous paper series ap- perceived failure in adoption have been discussed in several pearing in the stochastic hydrogeology literature, one in 2004 papers (published in 2004 and 2016; for a complete list see and one in 2016, and identifying the current thinking on Sect. 2). In this study, we are set to take yet another look the topic, including the perceived data needs of stochastic at this issue and draw some conclusions based on a factual methods, the attitude in regulations and the court system re- basis.