www dot
www dot
www dot. No it is not a website address for a 9
gag type site or even the latest geological software/books/techniques. It is three
of the w’s which many of the hydrogeologists are passionate about. These are
water, obviously, waqf, which is the Islamic term for sustainable development
and the third w could be your wife or work, either way you are married to both.
Some academics lost their wives due to loving their work, but that is not a
topic we will delve into....yet.
The father of
hydrogeology, not Moses because he struck a rock and water came spilling out of
it, but the Frenchman Henry Darcy could be thanked for the science we have
today. Hydrogeology is a mere 150 odd years old, which truly makes it an infant
in comparison to other sciences. We see great works penned by research
scientists like Jacob Baer, which push the boundaries of porous media as a
science. It shows that the limits of knowledge are unknown and we do not know
what groundwater has in store for us over the next 150 years. This is particularly
true with Shale Gas fever hitting South Africa.
A former Professor
of mine said something very profound about aspects of Hydrogeology many years
ago. “This is part art part science”, is what he told us in a lecture on pump
test analysis. One could also say that experience plays a major role in
analysing and interpreting data. In other cases the trained eye could be
blinded by external factors unrelated to the science. Hydrogeology is partially
observational and partially numerical, and more recently everyone seems to want
to be a hydrogeologist due to the previously mentioned shale gas boom. This
third w for water is partially skewed towards subsurface fluid flow as
hydrogeologists never really received the attention the science deserved. I say
this due to the fact that it was the Cinderella of the water sciences, to
loosely quote a former Professor of mine, and now has risen to fame and
popularity like a rugby prodigy waiting to be injured.
The second w for
waqf can actually be traced back 1400 years to the Arabian Peninsula where one
of the first charitable endowments, which is a loose translation for waqf, was
actually a well. The well of Rumah was used for community development purposes
and was a true reflection of the application of social entrepreneurship for
sustainable development purposes. The owner of the well saw it not as work, but
a sacrifice for the greater good. This leads us into the final w, it could be
your wife or work, but we will focus on the professional.
Work is work, but
if love what you do you will never have to work a day in your life. This age
old adage still holds true, especially for hydrogeologists. This could be
attributed to the combination of skills we have and situations we find
ourselves in on a day to day basis. From the back office to the bush and
everything in between, it truly never is a dull moment. Initially my thoughts
on the science and work in this field were dreams of data mining, or being a
desktop hydrogeologist as a former co-worker of mine said. That bubble burst
very quickly when I realised that during my Masters I was merely a cog in the
machine at a Chinese sweatshop. I never knew that my passion, hard work and
determination for a subject matter could be turned into a financial venture for
somebody else.
At the end of the
day, the size of the packet you take home is of little importance when compared
to the great experiences one gains from working in this arena. Travelling the
world, major cities and remote locations included, meeting new people, some of
them seemingly strange, and having coffee and croissants in cafes around small
research facilities with some of the greatest minds are some of the perks.
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