UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — David DeWalle, Penn State professor emeritus of forest hydrology, has been awarded the 2023 Warren A. Hall Medal from the Universities Council on Water Resources.

The Warren A. Hall Medal is a memorial established to recognize exceptional accomplishments and distinction of an individual in the water resources field. The medal is the council’s most prestigious award and is presented to those who have demonstrated a career-long commitment to exemplary interdisciplinary scholarship and academic excellence in water resources. 

Over a career in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences that spanned nearly four decades, DeWalle made important scientific contributions in a diverse array of areas of hydrologic science. While his fundamental contributions advanced understanding and theory across a wide breadth of hydrologic science, DeWalle exhibited a career commitment to pursuing science that people care about.

Fitting with the Universities Council on Water Resources’ mission and the spirit of the Warren A. Hall medal, DeWalle pursued studies that benefited people and ecosystems. With longtime collaborator Al Rango, he published a textbook titled “Principles of Snow Hydrology” in 2011 — the first and most comprehensive in decades, with special attention paid to resource-management implications.

DeWalle is perhaps best known for researching the fundamentals of acid rain and its impact on wild brook trout. To understand why some catchments responded so quickly to low-pH precipitation, he used isotope hydrology to understand where and how streams get their water.