A quarter century of Water Resources Research

On this twenty-fifth anniversary of Water Resources Research (WRR), I can well recall the circumstances of its founding. Prior to the 1950s, the chief professional homes for water scientists had been societies such as the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Water Works Association, and the American Chemical Society, where water was secondary to the main theme of specific disciplines: engineering, public health, and chemistry. The American Geophysical Union (AGU), on the other hand, was a multidisciplinary grouping, where water scientists found a congenial environment in the AGU Hydrology Division. The division not only flourished but soon became the largest unit in AGU.