Review article: Co-creating knowledge for drought impact assessment in socio-hydrology 

Abstract. Drought impacts are increasingly recognised as socially influenced processes instead of mere hydro-climatic events. Yet, drought assessments continue to be entrenched in disciplinary boundaries or limited by top-down modelling approaches, excluding those who directly experience the impacts of droughts. Transdisciplinary approaches to knowledge co-creation offer a promising opportunity to advance socio-hydrology by considering the role of politics and power, economic visions, and differential agency in shaping drought outcomes, and the experiences and knowledge of those directly affected by drought events. However, transdisciplinary approaches to drought impact studies are limited to scattered empirical cases and miss coherent theoretical and methodological guidance. Drawing from a diverse body of literature on transdisciplinarity in sustainability science, integrated water resources management, socio-hydrology, science and technology studies, and political ecology, we develop an interdisciplinary conceptual framework to guide knowledge co-creation in drought impact assessment and adaptation. The framework stands on five major dimensions: 1) stakeholder analysis, 2) the scope of the co-modelling process, 3) a shared knowledge of drought, 4) model conceptualisation and implementation, and 5) awareness of power biases and knowledge imbalances. We discuss our framework's applicability space, limitations and contributions for advancing transdisciplinary approaches in future drought impact assessments.