Herman Bouwer
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Herman Bouwer was one of the world’s leading researchers in groundwater hydrology and water resources management, particularly in the area of Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR). He was a native of the Netherlands and moved to the United States in 1952 to study for his Ph.D. at Cornell University. He worked for 43 years at the U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, serving as Director from 1972 to 1990. His research efforts on characterizing and modeling the movement of water and pollutants in the vadose zone and groundwater resulted in field and analytical methods that are widely used in the groundwater sciences. He authored or co-authored over 300 publications and wrote the text book “Groundwater Hydrology”.[1]. Dr. Bouwer was also an adjunct faculty member of both the University of Arizona and Arizona State University.
Early Years
Herman Bouwer was born and raised in the city of Haarlem, the Netherlands, and was a teenager under German occupation during World War II[2]. Near the end of the war, Germany started to round up every able-bodied man and teenagers for forced labor in the German mines and factories. Many did not return. To escape being sent to Germany, Bouwer was hidden in a neighbor’s feed and grain business with two other young men. They would work secretly at night to grind wheat, and during the day, they would sleep behind flour sacks. If he had to go outside, he would dress like a girl to avoid detection.
Education and Career
After World War II, Dr. Bouwer enrolled in the Agricultural University in Wageningen and received a Masters degree in drainage and irrigation in 1952. He was invited to become a graduate student at Cornell University to conduct research in how to drain the waterlogged soils of central New York and received his PhD in agricultural and civil engineering and agronomy in 1955. He accepted a faculty position in the Agricultural Engineering Department at Auburn University and there he conducted research on unsaturated flow using resistance network analogs to solve soil physics problems prior to the development of analytical and numerical models in the groundwater sciences in the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1959, Dr. Bouwer went to the U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory, a new USDA ARS research laboratory in Phoenix, Arizona. His first task at the new lab was to build a large resistance network analog to analyze surface water/ground water interactions. Some of the problems he worked on were seepage from irrigation canals, groundwater mounding below MAR facilities, the effect of mounding on groundwater recharge rates and effect of ground water pumping on stream flow. Also using analog resistance networks, he developed several field methods for measuring saturated hydraulic conductivity to include the Double Tube Permeameter [3], Falling Head Seepage Meter [4], Pit Bailing Method [5], Air Entry Permeameter [6], Bouwer-Rice Slug Test in unconfined aquifers [7], and the single ring cylinder infiltrometer with correction for lateral divergence and hydraulic gradients [8]
Herman Bouwer was a leader in developing the science and application of MAR and Soil Aquifer Treatment (SAT) in the United States. His MAR and SAT research started in 1967 with the construction of the Flushing Meadows project in the dry Salt River bed in Phoenix. This was a field laboratory to study groundwater recharge using secondary treated sewage effluent. The research included studies on hydraulic loading rates, soil clogging, virus and bacteria removal, nutrient removal, nitrification-denitrification reactions, and trace organics and pharmaceutical products. His research demonstrated that soil and biological interactions in the river bed improved the sewage effluent water quality and could be adjusted through SAT wetting and drying cycles. Groundwater recharge and reuse would become the focus of much of his work and interests for the rest of his career.
Dr. Bouwer mentored many hydrologists throughout the world and helped establish and support the Biennial Symposium on Managed Aquifer Recharge (BSMAR), the International Symposium on Managed Aquifer Recharge (ISMAR), the Arizona Hydrological Society (AHS) and AHS Foundation for many years.
Awards
Dr. Bouwer received two USDA Superior Service Awards, the Walter L. Huber Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water- Groundwater, the Arizona Hydrological Society Lifetime Achievement Award and the National Groundwater Association's Life Member Award.
References
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- ↑ Bouwer, H. 1978. Groundwater Hydrology. New York: McGraw-Hill
- ↑ Bouwer, H. 2003. About Herman Bouwer. Ground Water, Vol. 41, No. 5, September-October 2003
- ↑ Bouwer, H., 1961. Double Tube Method for Measuring Hydraulic Conductivity of Soil in situ Above a Water Table. Soil Sci. Soc. Proc. 25:334-339
- ↑ Bouwer, H. and R. C. Rice, 1963. Seepage Meters in Seepage and Recharge Studies. J. Irr.Dr. Div., Proc. Am. Soc. Civ. Eng. 17-42.
- ↑ Bouwer. H. and R.C. Rice, 1983. The Pit Bailing Method for Hydraulic Conductivity Measurement of Isotropic or Anisotropic Soil. Trans. ASAE. 26. No. 5 1435-1439.
- ↑ Bouwer, H., 1966. Rapid Field Measurement of Air Entry Value and Hydraulic Conductivity of Soil as Significant Parameters in Flow System Analysis. Water Resour. Res. 729-738.
- ↑ Bouwer, H. and R. C. Rice, 1976. A Slug Test for Determining Hydraulic Conductivity of Unconfined Aquifers with Completely or Partially Penetrating Wells. Water Resources Research. No.3 423-428.
- ↑ Bouwer, H., Back, J.T., Oliver, J.M., 1999. Predicting Infiltration and Ground Water Mounds for Artificial Recharge, J Hydro Eng, ASCE, (4) pp. 350-357
