2024-2025: Hydrology: Hubert H.G. Savenije

Hubert H.G. Savenije
Delft University of Technology

Biography 

Hubert Savenije is Emeritus Professor of Hydrology at the Delft University of Technology. He published more than 300 scientific articles in the fields of hydrology, estuarine hydraulics and water resource management. In 2005 he published a book on "Salinity and Tides in Alluvial Estuaries" (see: https://salinityandtides.com/). He has worked as hydrologist and water resources engineer in many different parts of the world and particularly in Africa, Asia and South America. From 2004-2016 He was chief executive editor of Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS). He is Past-President of Hydrological Sciences of the EGU. From 2013-2017 he was President of IAHS (the International Association for Hydrological Sciences). In 2008 he received the Henry Darcy Medal of the EGU "for outstanding contributions to Hydrology and Water Resources Management". In 2014 he was elected Fellow of the AGU "for groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of hydrologic process organization at the macro-scale". In 2015 he was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Medal by the EGU "for outstanding hydrological research in developing regions". In 2017 he received the International Award of the AGU "for making an outstanding contribution to furthering the Earth and space sciences”. In 2020 He received the Dooge Medal of the IAHS "for scientific excellence in Hydrology". His scientific work has covered all aspects of the hydrological cycle, including atmospheric circulation and moisture recycling, evaporation, rainfall-runoff, catchment hydrology, river hydraulics, estuarine hydraulics, saltwater intrusion, and water resources management. He advocates a new theory of ecosystem-based hydrology as part of a living and evolving biosphere.


Abstract: The Hydrological System as a Living Organism

Hydrology is the bloodstream of the terrestrial system. The terrestrial system is alive, with the ecosystem as its active agent. The ecosystem optimizes its survival within the constraints of energy, water, climate and nutrients. The ecosystem can modify system components that determine fluxes and storages in the hydrological system. Traditionally, these system components are considered static and are fixed by calibration on time series of the past. However, the hydrological system is alive and can adjust to change. The physical law driving this evolutionary process is the second law of thermodynamics with the Carnot limit as its constraint. This implies a new direction in the theory of hydrology