It is our great pleasure to introduce the inaugural issue of the new scientific periodical “Water Waves—an Interdisciplinary Journal”.

The journal is intended as a forum for objective, unbiased research in the field of water waves, and will disseminate high-quality papers on any aspect of the subject, both theoretical (including rigorous mathematics, mathematical modelling and numerical simulations) and practical (including laboratory and field work, computational techniques and statistical data analysis). The distinguishing feature of our journal is its emphasis on interdisciplinarity; in fact all authors are expected to write an introduction explaining the main findings of their article in terms accessible to non-specialists, and placing the results in a broader context.

In this sense the journal is a service for the community, part of a new infrastructure facilitating new interdisciplinary approaches to water-wave research. As part of our remit we will occasionally publish survey and instructional articles, and from time to time there will be issues devoted to papers discussed at interdisciplinary meetings on water waves.

The launch of our journal coincides with some sad news for the water-wave community. Our colleague and friend Walter Craig, who was a leading figure in the mathematical theory of water waves and a member of our Editorial Board, passed away in January. One of the following issues will be dedicated to his scientific legacy.

We would like to thank the members of our Editorial Board, who join us from diverse subdiciplines of our field, for their enthusiastic support for the project. All Editors are very happy to answer questions and give informal advice to researchers interested in submitting to the journal.

Our thanks also go out to Birkhäuser journal staff who have been very helpful in getting the journal off the ground, and assisting with technical issues in the submission and production process. We would like to thank in particular Clemens Heine for guiding us through a rigorous review process.

And of course our biggest thanks are to the authors of this and future issues for placing their trust in us; without your support this project would not be possible. We will endeavour to serve the community by running the editorial process in a fair and transparent way, and hope to establish the journal among the leading outlets for research in the field of water waves.