John Chilton
John graduated in geology from the University of Birmingham in 1969 and then spent two years as a VSO volunteer in the Water Department in Kenya, much of it siting boreholes in varied and difficult terrains. Following an MSc in Engineering Geology at Imperial College, he joined the British Geological Survey in 1972. The early part of his career with the Survey was spent in regional water resource investigations in Libya for the Great Man Made River, a long spell in the Yemen and others in Botswana and Korea. From 1980 to 1986, he led a UK-funded project in Malawi supporting the government in its efforts to meet the country’s water supply needs. This resulted in a life-long interest in rural water supplies, and publications on the crystalline basement and weathered regolith aquifers of Africa. From the late 1980s, John continued to travel widely for BGS, but also worked extensively in the UK on the impact of agriculture and the development of groundwater quality monitoring programmes. The latter interest led to important contributions to and publications for WHO, UNECE, UNESCO, UNICEF and UNEP and an EU Working Group providing guidance on the implementation of the WFD. John was awarded the Whitaker Medal of the Geological Society of London in 2008.
John joined IAH in 1988 and served as chair of the British chapter from 2000 to 2006. At the 1997 Congress in Nottingham he was responsible for the publications, one pre-printed and distributed to participants and one afterwards in the ICH Blue Book Series. He was an HJ Associate Editor from 2003 to 2007 and also served on the editorial board of the journal Ground Water. Since his retirement from BGS in 2008, he has worked part time as IAH’’s Executive Manager, leading the Secretariat team in its support for all the component parts of the association. During this time he has been involved in developing numerous new initiatives and frequently representing IAH externally as an ambassador for IAH and for groundwater.
In his response, John said that in many ways he was lucky to have been in the right place at the right time when the opportunity to become IAH Executive Manager presented itself. He was grateful to the broad IAH membership for making this job so enjoyable and to Council and Executive for such a productive working relationship, and he particularly thanked the Secretariat team for their efforts and support since 2008.
