When we launched Nature Water in January 2023, our declared goal was to report the most significant research results regarding the evolving relationship between water resources and society. One year is perhaps not a substantial length of time in the life of a journal. However, looking back at our first 12 issues gives us the opportunity to reflect on whether we are on the right track and plan what we intend to do next.

Credit: January (Piyaset/iStock / Getty Images Plus/Getty); February (Robin Rahman/Moment/Getty); March (Valentina Monaco); April (Martina Mazzarello, MIT Senseable City Lab); May (Kandella/Alamy Stock Photo); June (Ruoyu Wang and Lesa Brown, Vanderbilt University); July (Yaghi Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley); August (Professor Yanpeng Cao, Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology); September (Bumper DeJesus, Princeton University); October (Ted D. Harris, Kansas Biological Survey and Center for Ecological Research, University of Kansas); November (Lian Feng, Southern University of Science and Technology); December (Valentina Monaco)

From the outset, we wanted to create a venue for all researchers aiming at understanding how humans relate to water and working to tackle the challenges related to water and sanitation, regardless of their background. Looking back at what the journal has published so far, we are satisfied that we are living up to our goal of reporting advances in natural sciences, applied sciences and engineering and social sciences. We are aware that this is only the first step, and to really learn how to live in harmony with water resources and provide clean water and sanitation to all, we need to look at this natural resource from a wide perspective, collaborate with colleagues from other disciplines, and put water in context with other resources, including food and energy. This first anniversary issue includes an inspirational Q&A with Sandra Postel, founder of the Global Water Policy Project, in which, among several other points, she highlights how we have started stepping out of our silos and how we must continue doing so at a larger scale. Almost in analogy, Nature Water has published interdisciplinary papers, and this will remain one of our priorities for the future.

We have covered a wide range of topics through our research articles, reviews, and opinion pieces. In addition, we have highlighted several themes that we feel are essential for water-related research and that we therefore want to cover in our journal. Back in March 2023 we published a focus issue on the UN Water Conference and WASH more generally, which was accompanied by an online collection. We then highlighted wastewater-based epidemiology, the impact of climate change on the water cycle, atmospheric water harvesting, the water–food nexus, the sanitation crisis, and PFAS regulations.

We shall continue discussing specific topics in a similar way, but we have decided to take a step forward and invite submissions through open calls in areas that we deem crucial. Two such open calls have just been launched in collaboration with other journals in the Nature Portfolio. The first one is on sanitation. We know that almost half of the world’s population does not have access to safely managed sanitation. Improving matters will require the contribution of research in public health, sustainable management, technology development, and environmental, social, and technical challenges. We welcome submissions of articles that can help further our understanding and/or offer solutions to best address the global sanitation crisis.

The second open call is on hydraulic engineering. We feel that both fundamental and technological advances are essential for the understanding of how water interacts with the natural environment and critical infrastructures. We welcome submissions of articles that contribute to advancing our understanding and/or proposing solutions to meet the challenges inherent in the utilization of water for various purposes.

An aspect that we emphasized in the first issue was our commitment to open science. It is encouraging to see that 60% of the research articles published in our first volume include a link to a file or folder in a publicly accessible repository. It is also promising that in a further 34%, the authors place the data in the supplementary information or in the main text. We still feel that to improve accessibility and reusability of data, these should be in public sources, but it’s reassuring to see that most authors are happy to make their data public, and we’ll continue reminding them and asking them to place data in the purposely created repositories.

We would like to start 2024 by thanking all of the water researchers who have supported Nature Water so far by submitting their manuscripts, by accepting our review requests and by engaging with us through their opinion articles, at conferences, or through our webinar series Nature Water Talks, which will continue in 2024 with an even stronger focus on the articles published by the journal.