Richard de Jeu wins 2012 Boussinesq award

A scientist from the CCI soil moisture project, assistant professor Richard de Jeu of University Amsterdam (VUA), was awarded for his outstanding scientific contributions to hydrological sciences. He gained the Boussinesq award for his development of global soil moisture and evaporation products.

Richard de Jeu (cluster Earth and Climate) gained the Boussinesq award for his development of global soil moisture and evaporation products. After he pioneered the derivation of soil moisture from passive microwave satellites, he has recently developed a new merged 30-year product of global soil moisture dynamics that uses the best characteristics of several earlier products. This is a landmark development that is already finding its way and use into climate and hydrological studies. Importantly all this data is open access and publicly available. This is incredibly important in current climate and other sciences. Richard de Jeu has put his data open access, long before it became fashionable.

The Boussinesq award is made on a bi-annual basis and given to a person for recognition of his/her outstanding scientific contributions to hydrological sciences. The 2012 award is the first award of the Boussinesq Center. The Boussinesq Center for Hydrology is the Dutch scientific hydrology centre. The objective of the Boussinesq Center is to strengthen hydrological research in The Netherlands, and to create favorable conditions for efficient multi-disciplinary research environment.  

The award will be given to Richard de Jeu on a special ceremony early 2013.