By Alice McFarlane

USask researcher receives international hydrology award

Apr 25, 2025 | 2:53 PM

A University of Saskatchewan (USask) water researcher has been recognized with a prestigious international honour.

Dr. John Pomeroy is the recipient of the 2025 International Hydrology Prize – Dooge Medal, awarded by the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The Dooge Medal is presented annually to a researcher who has made critical contributions to the fundamental understanding of the science of hydrology.

Pomeroy received the award in recognition of his advancements in understanding climate science, hydrological processes and hydrological predictions.

Pomeroy received the news of the achievement while doing field research on Fortress Mountain in Alberta. He called it a tremendous honour.

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“It was staggering for me,” Pomeroy said. “It was a great surprise, and a very pleasant surprise.”

In addition to being a Distinguished Professor in USask’s Department of Geography and Planning in the College of Arts and Science, Pomeroy is also the director of the USask Centre for Hydrology, principal chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in Mountain Water Sustainability, and a member of the Global Institute for Water Security (GIWS). He also directs the Global Water Futures (GWF) program and GWF Observatories (GWFO), the largest university-led freshwater research and monitoring operation in the world.

Pomeroy’s research at USask has spanned more than four decades, going back to the early 1980s when he was an undergraduate student in the Department of Geography and then a graduate student in the Division of Hydrology in the College of Engineering.

He is the world’s most-cited snow hydrologist, and his research into glaciers, snow and ice hydrology, and hydrological modelling has elevated him as a world-class hydrological researcher.

“The long, cold winters at the University of Saskatchewan sites in Saskatoon and in Canmore make our field research sites a perfect lab,” he said. “The studies we can conduct here easily would be exceedingly difficult for people based in other long-term centres of hydrological research.”

USask and Saskatchewan have long been a hub for cutting-edge water research. While Pomeroy might be using drones, lasers, and digital data logging devices in his current work on Fortress Mountain, he remembers when none of this technology existed.

As Pomeroy put it, researchers knew nobody was going to do the work for them. One way or another, they would need to develop methods to figure it out on their own.

“When I started in field research, USask’s Division of Hydrology was one of the most advanced in the world for technology,” Pomeroy said. “No instrument existed to measure what you wanted, so we had to design them.”

Pomeroy is the third USask researcher to ever receive the Dooge Medal, and the fourth Saskatoon-based researcher to receive the International Hydrology Prize. He said that achievement speaks to the strength of the water research community, established and grown over years of work and innovation, based in the heart of the Prairies.

“There’s more to discover out there, and that means going out and observing these processes in the field,” he said. “And that’s where the University of Saskatchewan can make a strong and unique contribution to the world.”

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com