Committee

The IAH Urban Groundwater network
Committee

Radu Gogu, ROMANIA
Director

Radu Gogu is Full Professor and Director of the Groundwater Engineering Centre at the Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest (UTCB), Romania. His research focuses on Water Resources Engineering, with particular emphasis on groundwater management, natural hazards, and climate-change-related impacts in urban environments. He is actively involved in international initiatives and projects addressing these challenges across multiple cities.He earned his Ph.D. in Applied Sciences from the University of Liège, Belgium, and has extensive international research experience in Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Greece, and Romania. From 2000 to 2005, he worked as a postdoctoral senior researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). He subsequently held a senior researcher position at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Barcelona, Spain) from 2005 to 2010, supported by the prestigious Ramón y Cajal fellowship.Between 2010 and 2019, he initiated and led the development of the Bucharest urban groundwater model, which is currently used as a city-scale framework for the implementation of sustainable drainage systems. He serves as Deputy Chair of the Groundwater Management Specialist Group of the International Water Association (IWA). His major scientific and technical achievements include the design of the groundwater database for the Walloon Region (Belgium), the development of prototype hydrogeological maps for the same region, the creation of the first geospatial database concept for active volcanoes (ETH Zurich, Geowarn Project), the design of the Barcelona city hydrogeological spatial database, and the development of software tools for water quality assessment and 3D geological analysis..

Contact: radu.gogu@utcb.ro

Julia Gathu, KENYA
Deputy Director

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Ken Howard, CANADA
Co-Director

During the past 40 years, Ken Howard has worked on groundwater projects around the world, authoring or co-authoring over 150 articles including 6 books. His interests range from aquifer recharge assessment and regional groundwater modelling to contaminant migration, seawater intrusion and the impact of climate change on global water resources. He has a special interest in the management and protection of groundwater in urban areas, and the importance of good urban water governance. He has been a Professor of Hydrogeology at the University of Toronto since 1981 and served as elected President of the International Association of Hydrogeology (IAH) 2012–16.

Stephen Foster, UNITED KINGDOM
Co-Director

Stephen Foster is Visiting Professor of Hydro-geoscience at University College London, and both a Chartered Environmental Engineer and Chartered Geologist. He has long-standing and significant international experience in groundwater assessment, management and protection, and has held the following senior posts : WHO-Groundwater Advisor for Latin America and Caribbean (1986–89), British Geological Survey-Divisional Director (1990-99), World Bank-Groundwater Management Team Director (2001–11) and Global Water Partnership-Senior Adviser (2012–15). He has served as International Association of Hydrogeologists Vice-President (Western Europe) during 2000–04 and President during 2004–08. He was also one of three founders of the UK Groundwater Forum (a multi-stakeholder cross-sector platform) and a member of the EC-Groundwater Working Group during 1998–2006.