Water Underground

Writing a research vision statement in a pandemic

WaterUnderground 3rd March 2021

Collected sticky notes from our last in-person activity before the pandemic: brainstorming to write a new research vision and mission statement.

Tom Gleeson, University of Victoria with lots of input from the GSAS research collective We’ve all done weird, new things in the pandemic. We have tried Zoom parlour games and a few of us have done the pandemic tropes of giving bread baking or even giving a new fitness regime a try. Strangely, the very last thing that we did together in person as a research group before the first pandemic lockdown ...[Read More]

Elevating diverse voices and groundwater research from around the world with Water Underground Talks

WaterUnderground 18th December 2020

By Tom Gleeson and Viviana Re It has been a challenging year of a pandemic, economic collapse and an ever-increasing awareness of racism, all set against a backdrop of other global challenges including climate change and food security. We believe it is important to link groundwater with these challenges and to stay positive using our science and work as scientists to contribute to a better future. ...[Read More]

A buffet of new resources for teaching hydrology and water resources!

WaterUnderground 28th November 2020

Dr. H20 discussing how to solve water problems (L) and some of the available teaching resources now on HydroShare! (R).

By Tom Gleeson (aka Dr. H2O) The content of this post will be presented as an invited eLightning presentation at AGU 2020 in the session “Online Hydrology Education: Lessons Learned from Designed and Impromptu Remote Instruction”. When: Tuesday, 8 December 2020: 07:00 – 08:00 PST What I teach and basic resources I teach Sustainable Water Resources (CIVE 340) at the University of Victoria – a ...[Read More]

Calling on hydrologists to help each other with emergency remote teaching

WaterUnderground 26th June 2020

Lecture halls will be empty for many this fall. How can you help the hydrology community pivot to online teaching?

By Tom Gleeson, Adam Ward, Anne Jefferson, and Skuyler Herzog Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are in the same situation: all of a sudden ‘pivoting’ to online teaching, which is probably better called ‘emergency remote teaching’ since few of us have the background, training, and resources to purposefully develop online courses. Fortunately, this response has also catalyzed the open sharing ...[Read More]

Should the pandemic change what we ‘do’ as sustainability scientists?

WaterUnderground 18th May 2020

Reflections and Ripples by David Hawkins-Weeks (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

By: Viviana Re and Tom Gleeson he world will likely never be the same again after the covid-19 pandemic – too much has changed for us personally, socially and culturally. The pandemic is a terrible tragedy that continues to devastate lives and economies while ironically also bearing the possibility of being a much needed global sustainability reset. So as applied scientists focused on sustai ...[Read More]

Video: Linking water planetary boundaries and UN Sustainable Development Goals

WaterUnderground 7th May 2019

Tom Gleeson talking about doughnut economics and showing great doughnut eating restraint.

Water Underground creator Tom Gleeson prepared this quick research video (with no more than a toothbrush, a file holder, and a doughnut, in one take!) for the Ripples project meeting at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, that was held in April. In this video, he talks about using doughnut economics for linking water planetary boundaries and UN Sustainable Development Goals. Click here to display con ...[Read More]

Dowsing for interesting water science – what’s exciting at EGU 2019?

WaterUnderground 5th April 2019

Is that a crowd of geoscientists wandering through Vienna?

Joint post by Sam Zipper (an EGU first-timer) and Anne Van Loon (an EGU veteran). Every April, the European Geophysical Union (EGU) holds an annual meeting in Vienna. With thousands of presentations spread out over a full week, it can feel like you’re surrounded by a deluge of water-related options – particularly since the conference center is on an island! To help narrow down the schedule! ...[Read More]

A Tanzanian groundwater safari through the last 2 million years

WaterUnderground 5th January 2018

Post by Mark Cuthbert, Research Fellow and Lecturer at Cardiff University, in the United Kingdom, and by Gail Ashley, Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University, in the United States. _______________________________________________ During the dry season, Lake Masek in Northern Tanzania (see map) is a lovely place to be if you’re a hippo or a flamingo, but for humans it’s an inhospitable environ ...[Read More]

Bedrock: A hydrogeologist’s devotional

WaterUnderground 17th November 2017

Post by Kevin Befus, Assistant Professor at the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Wyoming, in the United States. _______________________________________________ I want to share a book with you that has encouraged me through initial academic mires (I was only in graduate school for 7 years…) and inspired me to expand my perception and appreciation of the natural world. ...[Read More]

Community advice to young hydrologists, Part 1

WaterUnderground 10th November 2017

We at Water Underground loved reading Young Hydrologic Society’s post titled “Community advice to young hydrologists” – an advice column written by a network of established scientists in the field. We appreciated the column so much, in fact, that we have decided to re-blog the post to you (with YHS’s consent, of course). We’ve split up their post by question, and have added in hyperlinks to all co ...[Read More]