AHS congratulates Stanley A. Leake, the latest recipient of our Lifetime Achievement Award (LAA). The award was presented to him at this year’s annual symposium in Flagstaff.
Stan is an Arizona-born-and-bred groundwater hydrologist who, during the course of his 42+ year career with the USGS, has impacted the field of hydrology on an international scale. A graduate of both ASU (B.S. in mathematics) and the UA (M.S. in hydrology and water resources), Stan has worked for over four decades on groundwater and surface-water issues affecting the state. He is well known in the U.S. for his publications on stream capture and groundwater/surface water interactions.
Stan has made significant contributions in the area of groundwater modeling. He is a renowned developer for USGS’s modeling software, MODFLOW—a staple in the hydrologist’s toolkit. His subsidence and compaction sub-packages for MODFLOW (SUB and SUB-WT) are widely used in Arizona and elsewhere in the U.S. and other countries. Stan contributed heavily to subsidence and grid-refinement techniques in MODFLOW and authored the user guide for SUB-WT. His other innovations include the use of superposition groundwater models to gain elegant insights into aquifer systems.
In the area of water resources, Stan’s publication with Bill Alley, The Journey from Safe Yield to Sustainability, continues to be a highly influential article discussing concepts of safe yield and sustainability of groundwater.
The LAA honors individuals who have contributed to AHS or to the science of hydrology within Arizona and/or who have received national renown for their contributions in the field. The award consists of a personal recognition plaque, a traveling plaque listing all past recipients, and a $500 check to an Arizona educational organization of the recipient’s choice. AHS has awarded a dozen LFAs since 1995. To see a complete list and learn more, visit our LAA page.
