Memorial Tributes Volume 24 (2022) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
M. GORDON WOLMAN
M. GORDON WOLMAN
Pages 382-389
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 383... ...
DeFRIES AND THOMAS DUNNE SUBMITTED BY THE NAE HOME SECRETARY MARKLEY GORDON WOLMAN died February 24, 2010, at age 85. He was one of the founders of the modern quantitative approach to fluvial geomorphology, and he devoted his career to developing and teaching methods for applying earth science to questions of environmental management and public policy, creating a legacy of published work, influential reports to government, and students inculcated with his profound commitment to applying science as public service.
|
From page 384... ...
He returned to Johns Hopkins University in 1958 as chair of the Isaiah Bowman Department of Geography. The department merged with the Sanitary and Water Resources Engineering Department in 1968 to become the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering (DOGEE)
|
From page 385... ...
Reds worked with students and colleagues to increase knowledge of river channel behavior with his provocative, novel ideas. For example, a 1978 paper extended his study of the magnitude and frequency of morphogenetically significant weather events from river channels to the hillslopes of watersheds, in 1987 he demonstrated how flood discharge sequences control temporal fluctuations of channel geometry, and in 1990 he extended systematic study of channel geometry to forested mountain ranges and also expanded his earlier work on channel-forming discharges.
|
From page 386... ...
In 1971 he wrote an important paper demonstrating how the flood-prone areas of valley floors could be rapidly delineated through the use of simple field mapping without slow, expensive hydraulic data collection and computation, practices that continue to slow the delineation of flood-prone lands and allow development to spread into dangerous areas faster than regulation and sound advice can be implemented. Another influential paper in 1971 was his review of water quality, the first to illustrate temporal trends in the quality of the nation's rivers and the extremely nonlinear response of water quality to cleanup efforts.
|
From page 387... ...
He also used his expertise in fluvial geomorphology to address global issues through service on international committees. He addressed issues ranging from the impacts of soil erosion on crop productivity to links between population, land use, and environment.
|
From page 388... ...
These reports still deserve attention mainly because the problems are so important: energy, human response to flood hazard in developed and developing nations, water supply and human health, pollution of waterways, the management of large rivers, the transmission of water-borne diseases in tropical rivers, land degradation and soil productivity, water resources, and toxic waste disposal policies. His work also guided the application of systems analysis and inter disciplinary approaches to derive solutions for environmental problems.
|
From page 389... ...
He presided over one of the first and most ambitious experiments in interdisciplinary research and education, firmly rooted in his notion that "the rationality for interdisciplinary studies is based on the common observation that problems in the real world are not separable into disciplines."2 He acknowledged the difficulties of establishing an interdisciplinary faculty and graduate program in a discipline-based academy (a continuing problem with no resolution in sight) , but concluded that a number of recurring environmental themes, such as the inseparability of natural and social processes, the existence of spillover effects or externalities, the problem of the commons, the existence of incommensurate and nonmonetary values, and the importance of large-scale natural processes undergo ing dynamic and evolutionary change, appear to warrant con tinuing emphasis.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.