Honorary degree to Israeli scientist Gedeon Dagan

The ceremony to award an honorary degree in Forestry and Environmental Sciences to Israeli scientist Gedeon Dagan will take place on Wednesday, June 19, 2013, as part of the international conference Four Decades of Progress in Monitoring and Modeling of Processes in the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere System: Applications and Challenges.

Dagan, professor emeritus of the School of Hydrology of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering ,Tel Aviv University, is the scholar who has most contributed to and directed research on processes related to groundwater dynamics.

The HC Degree to Professor Gedeon Dagan is conferred at the suggestion of the Department of Agriculture ,Federico II University.

The conferral of the degree will be held on Wednesday, June 19, 2013, at 11 a.m. in thehistoric Aula magna of theFederico University, Corso Umberto I, in Naples.

Massimo Marrelli, Rector of the Federico II University, Paolo Masi, Director of the University's Department of Agriculture, Alessandro Santini, President of the Federico II Italian Agricultural Engineering Association, will introduce the ceremony. Andrea Rinaldo, Professor of Hydraulic Constructions University of Padua and Director Laboratory of Ecohydrology Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne (Switzerland), will give the Laudatio Academica by Gedeon Dagan, followed by Professor Dagan's Lectio Magistralis.

Professor Gedeon Dagan has made important scientific contributions to the characterization of aquifers, to the monitoring of hydro-dispersive processes taking place in aquifers and the overlying partially saturated zone, and to the criteria for the protection and preservation of groundwater aquifers, opening new horizons in the field of groundwater management.

In many countries, the attention paid to the state of groundwater is inadequate compared to the real extent of the problem, especially considering that today about 50-90% of the world's drinking water supply comes from groundwater aquifers.

The global scientific community reports modest public attention resulting in a lack of adequate policy responses. One reason for this is obvious: groundwater resources are not visible to the user. It is unusual for ordinary people to think that the soil hosts a very special and delicate ecosystem. Just as there is no visual evidence of critical situations such as overexploitation and pollution of groundwater resources. In contrast, the reality is quite different, and Gedeon Dagan's main merit was precisely to have made this ecosystem visible.

All of this will be discussed at the international conference Four Decades of Progress in Monitoring and Modeling of Processes in the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere System: Applications and Challenges, organized by the Department of Agriculture, Section of Agricultural, Forestry and Biosystems Engineering, which will be held, instead, at the Federiciano Conference Center in Via Partenope, 36, in Naples.