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Ground Water

Ground Water® is a leading technical publication for groundwater hydrogeologists. Each issue of the journal contains peer-reviewed scientific articles on pertinent groundwater subjects.

Ground Water is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Read the following editorial by Franklin W. Schwartz, editor-in-chief.

Volume 50 and Beyond

by Franklin W. Schwartz, Editor-in-Chief.

The not-so-subtle change to the cover of Ground Water proudly announces the 50th annual volume as a major milestone for one of the world’s influential voices for groundwater science. This editorial celebrates our accomplishments over 50 volumes and touches on a vision of the future. In 2012, the journal will be reprinting a few seminal articles to remind us of the past. Publication of Ground Water began in January 1963 with Bill Walton as Editor. The papers in Volume 1 had a cosmopolitan flavor; ranging from techniques for drilling, for water sampling, and for measuring small water-level fluctuations; to research-oriented papers dealing with ideas of chemical equilibrium, recharge rates and tracers; to descriptions of water programs in Canada and the UK.

The first issue kicked off with an editorial, which still remains a fixture in the journal. Bill’s editorial touched on the need for research with words that would resonate today:

Water is a necessary commodity to mankind and ground water is the largest available source of fresh water. Ever increasing demands for water continue to accelerate the development of ground water. Inevitably when development increases new problems arise, and greater effort is required to solve problems associated with the exploitation of ground-water resources. . . . . . .As a result scientific knowledge of ground water has expanded in recent decades. It is reasonable to presume that such knowledge will continue to grow at a rate commensurate with the increasing use of ground water.

Through 50 volumes, Ground Water has served the interests of a community of practitioners, researchers, regulators, and students. It contributed to establishing the foundations of our discipline through a careful selection of papers that touched on emerging strands, such as modeling, contaminant hydrogeology, and geochemistry. Column features also shaped ideas, opinions, and novel technologies.

My friend Ed Sudicky recently quipped “we can’t see where we are going only where we have been.” This comment highlights difficulties in divining new directions for research, business, and journals. However, new realities in science will have enormous implications for what Ground Water might look like in the future.

Metrics of how scientific work is evaluated have been turned upside down. Counts of numbers of papers have now given way to counts of paper citations that attempt to measure impact or innovation. Scientists now talk about Hirsch or H indexes and total numbers of citations, with impact factors measuring a journal’s ability to deliver citations. Thus, if we aspire to attract the very best papers, then Ground Water must become more competitive in delivering citations.

Scientific research is changing faster than one can imagine (Harris 2002). Today, there is less emphasis on pure research in small teams and more emphasis on larger and more complex problems of global importance undertaken by multidisciplinary teams. The challenge of emerging new problems is unprecedented in the history of hydrogeological sciences. Ground Water should be a logical home for such research, given a broadened scope that can accommodate groundwater coupling to other parts of the hydrologic cycle and the flexibility to handle collections of papers around a theme.

Another new reality is a push toward accountability in science. Harris (2002) and Feder (2011) emphasize that governments are becoming less interested in papers as an outcome, than in devising solutions to problems through technologies and patents. Science is viewed as a

contributor to the creation of wealth, jobs, and economic growth. In a sense, such an emphasis will bring us full circle to themes represented by early papers in the journal.

References

Feder, T. 2011. Brazil aims for its science to have greater impact.

Physics Today September: 26–28.

Harris, G. 2002. Integrated assessment and modeling—science for sustainability. In Understanding and Solving Environmental Problems in the 21st Century—Toward a New, Integrated Hard Problem Science, ed. Robert Costanza, Sven Erik Joegensen, et al., 5–17. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Elsevier.

Note: Opinions expressed in the editorial column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Ground Water Association.

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