To celebrate 50 years of Water International, this article presents 50 articles that have stood the test of time and have made significant contributions to the field of water resources knowledge. In particular, it identifies which articles received the most citations over the past 50 years, focusing on the top 10 cited articles per decade published in Water International. This provides a basis for reflecting on the themes and topics that have been prominent in these pages, and whether any trends, discontinuities, or forever issues can be identified. Importantly, we do not use the citation scores as a proxy for research quality but rather to assess the relevance of the papers in the context of their overall contributions to the evolving water sustainability discourse at the global level.

See full special issue: Full article: Halfway to 2075 continued: introduction to part 2 of the Water International 50th anniversary special issue