MS Students Are the Missing Link in the Future of Hydrogeology – And How You Can Help!

As readers of Groundwater, you have all faced a quizzical look when you told someone that you are a hydrogeologist. You have discovered that simply repeating the word—although, after all, it describes itself—is rarely sufficient. So, you have developed your own short explanation for what a hydrogeologist does and why our work is critical to society (one of my favorite is, “You know that water you drank yesterday? You're welcome.”). If you are in a position to hire an entry-level professional hydrogeologist, you are likely to share something else: a growing concern that there are not enough graduates to fill current demand, let alone future needs for our profession.

In summary, the future of hydrogeology is bright, but we are not producing enough MS-level trained students even to meet the current demand. In addition, universities are moving away from their role as the principal source of master's graduates and are unlikely to fill the future needs of industry or academia.

The good news is that there are several efforts in progress to address this problem. Some programs (e.g., the University of Neuchatel) have strong enrollment and continue to produce graduates. Other programs are coming together to offer multi-university degrees (e.g., the European ERASMUS+ cooperation project iNUX). In addition, there are efforts to redesign the university-based MS to deliver accessible in-person (e.g., the University of Arizona) or hybrid in-person/online programs (e.g., the University of Kansas and the University of Waterloo). There are also extra-university programs that focus on advanced topics (e.g., the Italian SYMPL School of Hydrogeologic Modeling). Finally, there are efforts to make videos and textbooks available for free to support educational programs (e.g., the micro-video project, the Groundwater Modeling for Decision Support Initiative, and the Groundwater Project).

We need all of these efforts to succeed if we hope to produce the workforce that will be needed in the future. However, there is a crucial first step that we need to complete as a community to ensure that future students are receiving the training that they need to enter the profession.

This is where we need your help as groundwater professionals.

Thank you for being part of the Groundwater community and I hope to work with you to advance our profession into the future!