Professor Abhijit Mukherjee has made fundamental contributions to the study of groundwater-sourced drinking water contamination and availability across the world. His most significant contribution is in advancing understanding of geogenic groundwater arsenic contamination, which poses health risk to tens of millions of people globally. His work across developing countries like India, Bangladesh, Inner Mongolia, Argentina, Chile and Bolivia led to the proposition of an integrated hydrogeological model for arsenic cycling and mobilization under different geological-hydrogeochemical conditions. He has also worked widely on other geogenic (e.g., fluoride, salinity, etc.) and human-sourced groundwater contaminants (e.g., nitrate, pesticides and other organic pollutants). He has incorporated data analytics into his studies, thus developing one of the first geology-tectonics-infused artificial intelligence models predicting groundwater contamination and health risks. Abhijit has also extensively worked to understand groundwater scarcity caused by natural climate processes and human intervention that controls groundwater quantity and recharge, thus influencing water and food security. These results demonstrate intensifying drought and famine in the near future. This outcome also has a strong bearing on the drying of the Ganges River from baseflow reduction. Also, he recently discovered groundwater rejuvenation in parts of India as a consequence of policy interventions, which contrasts the widespread depletion reported previously.

Professor Mukherjee serves as a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. Previously, he served as a physical hydrogeologist at the Alberta Geological Survey in Canada. He holds a Ph.D. (hydrogeology) from the University of Kentucky and completed postdoctoral work at the University of Texas at Austin. He has served as an expert to several government ministries and in an editorial role for nine journals published by AGU, the American Chemical Society, Elsevier and Springer-Nature. He published four books, including Global Groundwater, and contributed to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Water Development Report 2022.

For his work, among several accolades, Professor Mukherjee has been conferred the National Geoscience Award by the president of India, the Kharaka Award by the International Association of Geochemists, and the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, regarded as India’s highest science award. He is a fellow of the Geological Society of America and Royal Society of Chemistry.

Thus, Abhijit’s remarkable body of work has produced a huge impact in highlighting and addressing critical issues linked to groundwater contamination and scarcity in developing nations. His outstanding research work has not been limited to academic excellence but has also impacted the extremely important water resource availability for the vast groundwater-dependent population of the Global South.

— Subimal Ghosh
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Mumbai, India

— Isaac R. Santos
Southern Cross University
Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia

I am thrilled, honored and humbled to receive the 2023 Devendra Lal Memorial Medal from AGU. I fully acknowledge the many mentors, colleagues and friends who helped to make it possible. Many thanks are due to my nominators, Professor Subimal Ghosh, Professor Isaac Santos, Professor Frank Schwartz, Professor Bridget Scanlon and Professor Alan Fryar. I also thank the members of the award committeeReceiving this award provides me the opportunity to reminisce about a few of the people and events in my life that brought me to where I stand today. I should start with the people who provided me with the initial inspiration to excel in my life. These include my parents, Barin and Kajali, and my grandmother, Shefalika. Two other people who have stood beside me in both happy and difficult times are my wife, Abira, and daughter, Priyadarshini.It was only a serendipitous event that got me admitted to learn geology at the college level, and since then, I have fallen in love with the subject. Nonetheless, for the last 22 years, my interest in the science of groundwater (hydrogeology) was inspired and nurtured by my graduate adviser and subsequent collaborator-friend-elder brother, Professor Alan Fryar at the University of Kentucky. I was also fortunate to get to work with Professor Bridget Scanlon as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin and also to have mentors like legendary geoscientists Professor William “Bill” Thomas and Professor Józef Tóth.For the last two decades, my research in studying the quantity and pollution of groundwater has led me to work in some of the most deprived parts of the world. The experience I gained in working for the inhabitants of the Global South, for whom mere access to sufficient clean drinking water is a luxury, made me introspect and take up greater roles in society at large. Having been employed both in academia and government in the United States, Canada and India, I could develop a scientific understanding as well as social perspectives on the global water crisis. Presently, teaching at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, I feel that I am continuously learning from my students and scholars, who enthuse and encourage me, every day, to take up newer academic challenges that eventually will provide a service to the world.I thank AGU for this wonderful moment and stupendous honor.— Abhijit Mukherjee, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India