Introduction • The context of palaeohydrology • Palaeohydrological reconstruction: advantages and disadvantages • Palaeohydrology and future climate change • Changes in moisture balance between glacial and interglacial conditions; influence on carbon cycle processes • Erosion and sediment yield in a changing environment • Human dimensions of palaeohydrological change • Discovering Earth’s future in its past: palaeohydrology and global environmental change • Approaches to palaeohydrological analysis • Mediterranean, tropical and monsoon regions • Climate change and flood sensitivity in Spain • Geochronologies and environmental records of Quaternary fluvial sequences in the Guadalope basin, Northeast Spain, based on luminescence dating • Magnitude and frequency of Holocene palaeofloods in the southwestern United States: a review and discussion of implications • The response of geomorphic systems to climatic and hydrological change during the late glacial and early Holocene in the humid and sub-humid tropics • Cold regions • Palaeo and historical flood hydrology, Indian peninsula • A preliminary palaeohydraulic model applied to Late Quaternary gravel dunes: Altai Mountains, Siberia • Late Quaternary intra-continental river palaeohydrology and polycyclic terrace formation: the example of south Siberian river valleys • Temperate regions • River responses to decadal-scale changes in discharge regime: the Gila River, SE Arizona • Climatic or anthropogenic alluviation in Central European valleys during the Holocene • River response to the last neoglaical (the ‘Little Ice Age’) in northern, western and central Europe • A future for palaeohydrology • Issues in scientific co-operation on information sharing: the case of palaeohydrology • The Past Global Changes (PAGES) Project • Global continental changes: the context of palaeohydrology