As one of its initiatives, the Editorial Board of EMS recently instituted an annual Best Paper Award. The aim is to recognize those authors whose paper epitomizes the aims and scope of the journal. Characteristics of candidate papers are that they must possess as many as possible of the following features: high quality, innovative, interdisciplinary, generic in their utility and rigorous in the way their model or software testing is performed and reported. Since 2007 we introduced three categories: integrated systems, generic modelling and/or software, decision support.

• 2007
  • Integrated systems: P. Reichert, M. Borsuk, M. Hostmann, S. Schweizer, C. Spörri, K. Tockner, B. Truffer. Concepts of decision support for river rehabilitation. Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 22, Issue 2, February 2007, Pages 188-201.
  • Generic modelling and/or software: Nicola Checchi, Elisabetta Giusti, Stefano Marsili-Libelli. PEAS: A toolbox to assess the accuracy of estimated parameters in environmental models. Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 22, Issue 6, June 2007, Pages 899-913
  • Decision support: Richard S. Sojda. Empirical evaluation of decision support systems: Needs, definitions, potential methods, and an example pertaining to waterfowl management. Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 22, Issue 2, February 2007, Pages 269-277
• 2006
  • Best Paper: C.K. Makropoulos, D. Butler. Spatial ordered weighted averaging: incorporating spatially variable attitude towards risk in spatial multi-criteria decision-making. Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 21, Issue 1, January 2006, Pages 69-84.
  • Runner-up: H. Visser, T. de Nijs. The Map Comparison Kit. Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 21, Issue 3, March 2006, Pages 346-358.
  • Runner-up: Ruediger Schaldach, Joseph Alcamo. Coupled simulation of regional land use change and soil carbon sequestration: A case study for the state of Hesse in Germany. Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 21, Issue 10, October 2006, Pages 1430-1446
• 2005
  • Best Paper: William M. Jolly, Jonathan M. Graham, Andrew Michaelis, Ramakrishna Nemani and Steven W. Running. A flexible, integrated system for generating meteorological surfaces derived from point sources across multiple geographic scales. Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2005, Pages 873-882.
  • Runner-up: Jens Christian Refsgaard, Hans Jørgen Henriksen, William G. Harrar, Huub Scholten and Ayalew Kassahun, Quality assurance in model based water management - review of existing practice and outline of new approaches. Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2005, Pages 1201-1215.
  • Runner-up: Maja Schülter, Andre G. Savitsky, Daene C. McKinney and Helmut Lieth, Optimizing long-term water allocation in the Amudarya River delta: a water management model for ecological impact assessment, Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 20, Issue 5, May 2005, Pages 529-545.​​​​​