President’s Corner 2025

Salam, Murtada, P.E., P.H., CFM, AIH President, 2025-2026

I am excited and honored to be serving the American Institute of Hydrology (AIH) in my new role as President. Being a part of this community is a source of pride for me, a pride that I carry with me every day in my job as a hydrologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

I am grateful to be working with a dedicated Board of Directors who tirelessly advance our AIH mission despite their other full-time jobs, family obligations, and other commitments. We have some exciting initiatives on the horizon!

Thanks to our AIH DEI committee, we have launched a new program to award two $1,000 scholarships to undergraduate students enrolled full-time. The deadline for receiving applications is February 28th. Please check your e-mails for more information.

Our monthly AIH webinars are successful and well-attended, thanks to Dr. Luciana Cunha, AIH President-Elect, who has been reaching out to experts to present on important topics such as NOAA Atlas 15, salt mines, modernizing probable maximum precipitation estimation, and the challenges of rain-snow partitioning. Stay tuned to learn about our future webinars!

We look forward to continuing collaborating with our sister organizations such the American Water Resources Association (AWRA), American Geosciences Institute (AGI), Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR), and National Institutes for Water Resources (NIWR). We all had a great time at the 60th Anniversary Joint Water Resources Conference in St. Louis, MO, last fall especially interacting with fellow members and students.

We are also fortunate for James DiBenedetto, who has been managing our AIH membership needs and helping with exams, webinars, and other important AIH functions. Thanks to Megan Balkovic for her help with marketing, Kara Terhark for her help providing accounting services, and Gabriella Franco for her help in managing the AIH database. We are also fortunate to have your support and expertise!

We love to feature technical and industry articles written by our members. Please consider contributing to the AIH Bulletin by contacting admin@aihydrology.org. If you have not already renewed your membership, kindly do so by logging into your DB account. For any related questions, please contact James at admin@aihydrology.org. Kahlil Gibran wrote, “In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans.” Every AIH member is a valuable and cherished resource to our organization. We look forward to your feedback and welcome your suggestions and ideas. We want AIH to be your professional home!

New Membership and Database Manager

Mentioning James above, AIH is excited to introduce our NEW Membership and Database Manager, James DiBenedetto! James joins us with more than 19 years of experience in membership management, program coordination, and customer service. He was previously at the American Chemical Society, where he managed member communications, coordinated events, and managed membership renewals and recertifications.

James is supporting and proctoring AIH exams, managing and recording the very successful AIH webinar series, and supporting the AIH Board of Directors. We are really excited about his engagement with AIH as we continue to grow and support the hydrologic community.

Outside of his work with AIH, James is also an author with 20 books published on Amazon. He’s an opera devotee, a huge science fiction/fantasy nerd, and a die-hard New York Giants fan. He currently lives in Abilene, TX with his wife and their tuxedo cat, Roxie.

Welcome, James!

Conference Update

AIH Awards at the 60th Anniversary Joint Water Resources Conference and Call for 2025 Award Nominations

Salam Murtada and Jule Rizzardo represented the American Institute of Hydrology (AIH) this year at the 60th Anniversary Joint Water Resources Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, back in September 30th through October 2nd, 2024.

The Joint Conference brought together members of the American Water Resources Association (AWRA), the Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR), and the National Institutes for Water Resources (NIWR). This provided for a great opportunity for AIH to network with UCOWR and NIWR on future collaborations.

AIH provided student attendees of the conference with free AIH student membership for calendar year 2025!

In addition to free AIH membership, students attending the conference had the opportunity to take a free Hydrologist-in-Training (HIT) Exam training course from AIH’s very own Dr. Zhong Zhang. The review course and practice exam was both informative and entertaining! Thank you to Dr. Zhang for sharing his hydrology knowledge and exam preparation tips with our next generation of professional hydrologists.

 

During the award ceremony, Ms. Rizzardo presented two AIH awards for outstanding hydrologists in the areas of groundwater, and surface water. The Ray K. Linsley Award for Surface Water was presented to Deborah Lee. The Charles V. Theis award for groundwater was presented to Dr. Rao Govindaraju. 

 

The 2025 Award nomination process is here!
It is time to nominate an accomplished colleague for our next round of AIH Awards! AIH is seeking nominees for accomplished hydrologists in all four awards:

  • Ray K. Linsley Award for Surface WaterThe Ray K. Linsley Award was established in 1986 to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions in surface water hydrology. Dr. Linsley made numerous contributions to surface water hydrology and was the principal author of the textbook, Applied Hydrology, published by McGraw-Hill in 1949. He directed the PhD dissertations of 35 students at Stanford University covering research on mechanics of overland flow, rainfall synthesis, stochastic hydrology, and modeling of the hydrologic cycle. These efforts led to the development of the Stanford Watershed Model, a state-of-the-art tool of hydrologists worldwide.
  • Charles V. Theis Award for Groundwater The Charles Vernon (C.V.) Theis Award was established in 1986 to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions in groundwater hydrology. Charles V. Theis graduated with a PhD from the University of Cincinnati in June 1929 and made numerous contributions to the field of groundwater science throughout his life. An excellent biography of C.V. Theis’ life and contribution to groundwater science is found online at http://www.olemiss.edu/sciencenet/saltnet/theisbio.html.
  • Robert G. Wetzel Award for Water Quality
    The AIH Wetzel award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions in the field of water quality. This award was dedicated in 2006 to the family of the late Robert G. Wetzel. Dr. Wetzel was a true leader in the field of freshwater science. His thoughts and brilliant synthesis of all aspects of lakes and streams are included in more than 30 books and 400+ publications including the definitive college text book of this field, Limnology.
  • Founder’s Award for Institute Development
    The AIH Founders Award was established in 1990 to recognize individuals who have made outstanding, long-term, dedicated service to the Institute. It was established to honor the AIH founders Sandor Csallany, Alex Zaporozec, and Roman Kanivetsky. The award is given at the discretion of the AIH Executive Board to a member in good standing.

Award nominees do not have to be AIH members (except for the Founder’s award). Nominations should include the following information:

  1. A formal nomination letter by the nominator, outlining the education, career, and a record of performance detailing accomplishments and noteworthy impact achieved by the potential candidate.
  2. A current resume of the nominee.
  3. A minimum of two, and maximum of four, supporting letters with a limit of three pages each.

Submit your award nominations to admin@aihydrology.org by March 31, 2025. See the  AIH Award webpage for full details.,

Webinar News

Reflecting on a Year of Insightful Webinars

As we reflect on 2024, I am filled with gratitude and pride for the journey we’ve shared with our members through our Webinar Series. Over the past 12 months, we’ve hosted 10 webinars and we had more than 650 registrations. Each webinar was a unique opportunity to learn, connect, and grow the hydrologic community together.

This series has been about more than just delivering information; it’s been about establishing a community of curious, innovative, and motivated hydrologists who are working to address pressing issues. We heard from expert speakers who shared cutting-edge information and tools in hydrology. The lively Q&A sessions, instilled by our members, brought diverse perspectives and promoted debates on important and necessary topics in our field. I am very thankful for our members’ engagement in the webinars.

Looking Ahead: Join Us for Future Webinars

Looking ahead, we are starting 2025 with an exciting lineup of topics and speakers.

We kicked off the year with a January webinar on NOAA Atlas 15, presented by Drs. Janel Hanrahan and Lynne Trabachino from RTI International. NOAA Atlas 15 will play a critical role in the design of infrastructure and the safety of our communities.

In February we’ll feature Dr. Keil Neff and Haden Smith from the USACE Risk Management Center (RMC) presenting on the tools provided by the RMC to support Dam and Levee Safety Programs. Core tools include RMC-RRFT (Rainfall-Runoff Frequency Tool), RMC-BestFit, and RMC-RFA (Reservoir Frequency Analysis).

In March, we will welcome Carlos Fernandez-Jauregui, PH, current Director of the Water Assessment and Advisory Global Network (WASA-GN) and former, discussing global water resources challenges. Additional webinars will be announced as the year progresses!

If you haven’t yet experienced the value of our webinars, now is the perfect time to jump in. Save the date: AIH webinars are usually hosted on the fourth Thursday of each month at 9:00 AM PST. Let’s make the next chapter even more impactful—we can’t wait to see you there!

If you have suggestions for webinar topics, please contact our President-Elect, Luciana Cunha at admin@aihydrology.org.

As reminder, recordings of previous webinars are all available in the online AIH Continuing Education Center, which are free for AIH members!

Technical Articles Announcement

AIH aims to promote the application of hydrologic sciences by bringing together our community of hydrologists through dialogue and knowledge sharing. One avenue of knowledge sharing has been the AIH technical articles shared by members – a mainstay opportunity for the community to share their experiences, interesting studies, lessons learned, and technical innovations.

We believe the community appreciates the opportunity to share on a professional platform – a location that is more formal than social media, where we include an AIH Communications Committee review process, but not the burden (or cost!) of journal publishing. We want to make sure that the AIH community has a professional platform to share their works, and one that can be easily cited and referenced given your contributions and hard work.

As such, the AIH is excited to announce a change to the process for technical article publications – rather than embedding technical articles within Bulletins, submitted articles will be shared as standalone publications. This brings a number of benefits:

  • Easier to cite and reference with direct permanent links
  • Ability to share cross-platform for author promotion
  • Standardized archiving of technical articles
  • Asynchronous publication de-linked from AIH Bulletins
  • Networking opportunities by broadly sharing your unique expertise or perspectives

AIH Members can submit articles for review and consideration at this link HERE. Guidelines for preparing a manuscript can be found HERE. Images should be shared as separate referenced image files (rather than embedded in the document), and text may be shared in Microsoft Word for easy review and comment prior to publication. Please refrain from submitting promotional material for services or products – articles should help support and grow the hydrologic community.

Once articles are provided for review, they will undergo an AIH process that consists of a small panel of PH members. Articles are reviewed for technical relevance, appropriateness for AIH members, and readability. Comments will be provided to the author for consideration before final publication. Review and publication times will vary, but we aim to turnaround articles as quickly as possible to be sure your works are shared in a timely manner.

Potential topics of interest include:

  • Technical reports or findings,
  • Reviews or perspectives on recent hydrologic events, or 
  • Case studies

We’re excited about these changes and welcome your submittals to be published and shared with the community. Please contact admin@aihydrology.org with any questions, otherwise please share your submittals HERE.

DEI Scholarship

The Launch of the DEI Scholarship

In a climate where Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are under political threat, the AIH is more committed than ever to remove barriers for young hydrologists to obtain an education, despite the adversities they are facing. These amazing young hydrologists will help us tackle the biggest water resources problems of our century. They offer fresh new perspectives to solving problems and they will stand side-by-side with us, as our future colleagues and leaders.

I think back to the students I met at last year’s AWRA Conference and the discussions we had about the world’s water problems. The passion and creativity of this new generation of students is remarkable – and unstoppable. When I talked to them, I understood why they are so confident they can bring about change. They understand that to solve our most difficult water resources problems requires great power; the power of all voices to be heard and valued. The students are not afraid of diversity, equity, and inclusion – they embrace it, because they understand that when our foundation is built on inclusion, we all thrive in a future of innovation and discovery.

We all know that the world’s water problems know no boundaries – geographically, socially, and politically. We know that talent exists in every community, but opportunity does not always extend to every community. It is our collective responsibility to dismantle barriers that historically hindered opportunities for the next generation of hydrologists. That is why I’m so excited about the launch of the AIH DEI Scholarship Program. The AIH DEI Committee established this scholarship to further the AIH goal of extending educational opportunities for those who are underrepresented in hydrology, including individuals from diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and have experienced systemic barriers and adversity in their educational journey.

The online application period is open from January 13 through February 28, 2025. Students should apply online at https://submitform.wufoo.com/forms/aih-dei-scholarship-application/.

We will award two $1,000 scholarships to undergraduate students who are enrolled full-time in a hydrology-related program of study. The application includes an online form, college transcripts, and one letter of recommendation. The scholarship also includes a year-long AIH membership and access to mentor consultation with AIH members.

I’m thrilled that AIH is supporting a new generation of young hydrologists who have demonstrated they are ready and unafraid to take on the world’s most difficult water problems. In the face of a shifting political landscape, we stand firm in belief that diversity in the sciences—especially in hydrology—is not just a practical necessity but also a moral obligation. Despite efforts to undermine diversity, we must build a future where scientific innovation thrives on inclusion, where every voice is valued, and where opportunities are accessible to all.

The DEI Scholarship Fund needs your support to be sustainable. Please consider making a contribution. Donations are not tax-deductible.

[Written by Jule Rizzardo, AIH Past President]

Member News

Recognition of Jamil Ibrahim’s Service to AIH

In 2024, Jamil Ibrahim retired from the AIH Board of Directors. As past-president, I wanted to take the time to honor and recognize Jamil’s leadership, vision, and friendship over the last eight years I’ve been involved with AIH. Jamil has led us through significant challenges with tenacity and enthusiasm. We were so fortunate to have Jamil’s leadership and vision throughout the pandemic, and through several major transitions of AIH management.

Jamil joined AIH as a Professional Hydrologist in 2006. He joined the AIH Board of Directors as Vice President of Institute Development in 2016, became President Elect in 2019, served as AIH president from 2021 to 2022, and provided valuable guidance as Past President from 2023 to 2024. He remains a trusted advisor and an active member of the PH community as he continues to lead interdisciplinary teams for large-scale water infrastructure projects at Stantec.

After pondering the best way to honor Jamil’s contributions over the last 8 years, I decided to take you through a photographic tour of Jamil’s contributions since I have known him.

Jamil as President-Elect, presenting the 2018 AIH Awards at the 2019 SEDHYD Conference
Jamil as President-Elect, presenting the 2018 AIH Awards at the 2019 SEDHYD Conference
Jamil organized the first Northern California meetup of AIH in 2020
Jamil organized the first Northern California meetup of AIH in 2020
Jamil leading the AIH Board through the pandemic with virtual collaboration and engagement (March 21, 2021)
Jamil leading the AIH Board through the pandemic with virtual collaboration and engagement (March 21, 2021)
Jamil celebrating New Water Year in style from coast to coast (2022)
Jamil celebrating New Water Year in style from coast to coast (2022)
Jamil with Dr. Zhong Zhang and Laura Keefer at the AIH Booth during the 2023 SEDHYD Conference
Jamil with Dr. Zhong Zhang and Laura Keefer at the AIH Booth during the 2023 SEDHYD Conference
Jamil helps the team with the Hydrologist-in-Training Exam Review Session at the AWRA 2024 Conference
Jamil helps the team with the Hydrologist-in-Training Exam Review Session at the AWRA 2024 Conference
Jamil leads a session on Surface Water and Ocean Topography at the AWRA 2024 Conference
Jamil leads a session on Surface Water and Ocean Topography at the AWRA 2024 Conference

In recognition of Jamil’s service, I’d like to remind everyone of a significant contribution of his to AIH – his vision – his goal for AIH to be the premier certifying organization and “home” for hydrologists and hydrologic technicians, which is carried forward today. We look forward to Jamil’s continued involvement with AIH and his valuable advice and continued friendship! Thank you, Jamil.

[Written by Jule Rizzardo, AIH Past President]