Why and when it is useful to publish and share inconclusive results and failures: reply to “Reporting negative results to stimulate experimental hydrology”

Abstract

We thank van Emmerik et al. for their discussion of our opinion paper. We do not fully agree that publication of negative results will be very effective in promoting experimental hydrology. Instead, we think that experimental hydrology is considered to be more risky than modelling studies because of difficulties in publishing inconclusive results and the potential for failure.