Ancestral Sociohydrology: Transforming Water Research by Learning from Multiple Ways of Knowing, Relating to, and Governing Water

The contemporary scientific concept of the hydrological cycle emerged within a positivist paradigm, historically serving the interests of state-led development and colonial expansion. This legacy positioned water primarily as a resource to be measured, extracted, and controlled – an ontology that has contributed, directly and indirectly, to the planetary crises of climate change and environmental degradation. While sociohydrology has advanced the field by including human and cultural dimensions, it remains largely rooted in positivist onto-epistemology that separate humans from nature. To achieve a sustainable and just coexistence on a living planet, we critically examine the colonial foundations of hydrological knowledge and embrace onto-epistemological pluralism, as a more transformative concept toward equitable relationships with and benefit from water. Drawing from place-based onto-epistemologies and their practices of ancestral hydro-technologies, we propose new ways to re-imagine our understanding of hydrology based on an onto-epistemological pluralism, incorporating multiple values, cultural norms, and identities. With this work, we launch an open reflection to pluralize narratives and corresponding illustrative archetypes of how human-water feedback are conceived, portrayed and known. The goal of this discussion is to develop the foundation for co-creating a more suitable concept of the sociohydrological cycle, which builds on a plurality of ways of understanding and relating to water.