My primary interest, both in my professional work and in my personal research, is the development of sustainable water supplies in the western United States. Historicaly, development in the west has relied heavily on the exploitation of water resources without much thought towards their longevity. Groundwater supplies in the west are now begining to show extreme signs of this lack of forethought. Aquifer water levels and yeilds are falling in inland areas and seawater intrusion has become a problem for municipal and agricultural groundwater users in most coastal communities.

We need to manage use and increase aquifer recharge instead of drilling deeper or farther away from population centers. This process starts with the study and documentation of aquifer systems to understand surface water/groundwater interactions and other sources of recharge.

My other interests include fractured aquifer hydrogeology, artificial storage and recovery, groundwater modelling, wellhead protection . . .

Any water source needs to be treated as a system, then we can better understand how our activities impact the quality and quantity of water available. This is easily done with surface water, but not so with groundwater.