B.I. Kudelin: a pioneer of regional evaluation of groundwater resources in Russia

Abstract

A talented educator and prolific scientist (with more than 120 publications), an outstanding manager, a person able to foresee mainstream scientific development in relation to societal demands, a visionary of “the big picture” of hydrogeological conditions, and a practitioner able to find a solution for the site specific problem—these are qualities that can rarely be found in one person. Boris Ivanovich Kudelin (Fig. 1), one of the leading figures in the recent history of Russian hydrogeology, possessed all of them in full. He was born in 1910 in the small village of KinelCherkasy in the Samara region. In 1935, Kudelin graduated from the Moscow Hydrometeorological Institute and for the next ten years worked as a practicing hydrogeologist at various governmental geological agencies. From 1944 till 1947 he was a post graduate student at the Laboratory of Hydrogeological Problems of the Academy of Sciences where he was preparing a Candidate thesis under the supervision of luminaries of Russian hydrogeology Academician F. Savarenskii and Professor O. Lange. His investigation on groundwater discharge into rivers brought him a Candidate of Sciences (CSc) in 1947. The main findings of this investigation and their practical applications were published in 1949 (Kudelin 1949). In 1955, Kudelin completed his thesis entitled “Principles of groundwater resources evaluation under natural conditions” and received a Doctor of Sciences (DSc). In 1957 he was appointed professor at the Department of Hydrogeology of the Moscow State University (MGU) and seven years later headed this Department. Under his leadership the Department became one of the best educational and scientific establishments in the former USSR. The list of Department members included such prominent hydrogeologists as N. Plotnikov, V. Shestakov, F. Bochever, S. Semenova-Erofeeva; each of them made a significant input in various branches of hydrogeology. Kudelin successfully combined heavy administrative duties, teaching and scientific studies. He taught several courses including general geology, general hydrogeology, methods of hydrogeological investigations, and others.