Book review: 200 Years of British Hydrogeology, by J. D. Mather (ed.) (Geological Society, London, 2004) Geol Soc London Spec Publ 225, 393pp. ISBN 978-1-86239-155-0

Abstract

The subject book (Mather 2004) is a very well written compendium of papers by various authors on key people and topics, which describe the evolution of the practice of hydrogeology in Great Britain. Summaries of contributions of distinguished hydrogeologists have been published previously, especially contributions from other European countries and America, but none, to the author’s knowledge, are as thorough and detailed as presented in this book about the British hydrogeologists. The book has an overview which nicely summarizes the 24 papers. It appears that the evolution of British hydrogeology essentially had two primary periods. The first was characterized by prominent individuals who made significant contributions, starting with William Smith (1769–1839) who, among other things, showed the relationship of springs to stratigraphy in 1799. Robert Stephenson (1803–1859), an engineer, wrote a hydrogeologic report on the London water supply and accurately described the shape of the cone of depression around a pumped well. The Reverend James Clutterbuck (1801–1885) noted how groundwater pumping affected surface water and saline intrusion beneath London; he is considered the father of English hydrogeology. Joseph Prestwich (1812–1896) apparently was the first to show hydrogeological information on a British geological map; and, John Snow (1813–1858) discovered that cholera was spread by contaminated drinking water. The second primary period in the evolution of British hydrogeology was one in which the majority of the contributions were made primarily through employees of various government organizations, beginning in about 1870 with scientists in the Geological Survey of Great Britain. William Whitaker (1836–1925) was a meticulous compiler of well logs and other groundwater information during his work with the Geological Survey. Whitaker was also involved later in his career as a consultant on proving a source of well pollution using a lithium chloride tracer. Joseph Lucas (1846–1926) is claimed to be the first person to have used the term “hydrogeology” in its modern context, was the first to refer to himself as a hydrogeologist, and drew the first British maps showing groundwater level contours. Lastly, Charles de Rance (1847–1906) produced a book surveying the water supplied to each town and sanitation authority in England and Wales which included a hydrogeological map showing the permeability of the strata. Hydrogeologic research was rather limited in the latter part of the nineteenth century but covered diverse segments, mostly conceptual or empirical in nature, such as intergranular and fracture flow, recharge, water balances, specific yield, and unsaturated flow. Especially intriguing are the solute transport experiments of Issac Roberts in 1879. It was also surprising to learn that the famous British scientist, John Dalton, constructed what was perhaps the first soil lysimeter to quantify infiltration as a percentage of precipitation in 1799, and the results of this work were applied about 90 years later in quantitative assessments of water resource availability. It was not until 1937 that there was a formal water unit within the Geological Survey. In response to major legislation, 1945 began an era of resource assessment. Research, however, within the Geological Survey seems to have begun in earnest after 1963 on aquifer properties, modeling, and hydrogeochemistry including applications to groundwater contamination. Prior to this time, much of the hydrogeological work was more descriptive in nature. Perhaps the most notable British contribution to the entire field of quantitative hydrogeology was from Norman Boulton (1899–1984), a civil engineering professor, who pioneered work in aquifer mechanics. He is best known for his “delayed yield” equations on the behavior of pumped unconfined aquifers. Mather’s book points out Received: 27 March 2009 /Accepted: 12 May 2009 Published online: 23 June 2009