Multiple lines of evidence highlight decreasing water availability globally due to natural processes and human interventions, with intensifying water, food, and energy tradeoffs. Mounting pressures expose a widening gap between freshwater science and the information required for effective, equitable decision-making. Now more than ever, sustained, comprehensive, internationally coordinated, and policy-relevant synthesis of the freshwater system across scales is needed to manage water in a changing world and ensure sustainable resources for human and natural systems. 

This session highlights emerging scientific and technological advances towards a unified global synthesis of the freshwater cycle—spanning precipitation, evapotranspiration, surface water, groundwater, the cryosphere, ecosystems, human use, and water quality—to reveal patterns and test hypotheses from catchment to global scales. We encourage innovative submissions that highlight integrative approaches—including both traditional and under-utilized (e.g. citizen science) observations, reanalyses, process-based models, and emerging AI-enabled inference—to advance a credible, routinely updated global assessment supporting discovery and actionable solutions.

• A - Atmospheric Sciences
• C - Cryosphere
• GC - Global Environmental Change
• SY - Science and Society