At Groundwater Week 2020, Reed Maxwell presents this year’s NGWA Darcy Lecture, which focuses on groundwater and the water cycle. Maxwell directs the Integrated GroundWater Modeling Center (IGWMC) at Princeton, where he is also a professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and the High Meadows Environmental Institute. We brought him on Drilling In-Site, episode 18, to talk all things groundwater.

“It tends to be hard to visualize,” Maxwell says. “Groundwater is out of sight, out of mind. It’s hard even for scientists, let alone the public and decision-makers. I think that’s one of our challenges. I think it’s as much a communications challenge as anything.”

We speak about how science can influence drilling and how drilling, in turn, can influence science.

“I think that we owe it [to ourselves] to make this connection between people that are drilling, that are in the field, that are really kind of interfacing with groundwater directly, and then what we also know about big picture,” he says.

Our conversation touches on a range of topics, from the spring 2020 County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund decision at the U.S. Supreme Court to the idea of a massive geophysical survey of United States groundwater. How can drillers contribute to modeling efforts? What is the value of having such national modeling? Check out today’s episode to hear more. Watch the video here or listen to the audio version of our conversation at www.thedriller.com/insite-podcast. You can also find our show on Apple Podcasts. Search for Drilling In-Site, then hit Subscribe.

Resources
Reed Maxwell’s website: maxwell.princeton.edu
The Integrated GroundWater Modeling Center (IGWMC) website: igwmc.mines.edu
HydroFrame, the “national community hydrologic modeling framework for scientific discover”: hydroframe.org