It is with great sadness that we report the recent death of John Rodda, longtime friend of IAHS and a key figure in its history. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family, friends and colleagues.

John’s academic career was forged in his native Wales. Still in Wales in the 1960s, his studies of headwaters led to the establishment of the famous catchment research programme at Plynlimon. John went on in the 1960s and 1970s to develop the pit rain gauge, widely accepted as superior to the standard used in most countries. In 1985 he was instrumental in convening the first of a series of conferences on the hydrological applications of weather radar. He took the initiative to establish links between catchment research being undertaken in various European countries, which eventually developed into the worldwide UNESCO FRIEND programme.

From the 1960s to the1980s John worked in research and development at the Institute of Hydrology in Wallingford, UK, the Department of the Environment in London and the Water Data Unit in Reading; from 1988 to 1995 he was Director of the Hydrology and Water Resources Department at the WMO in Geneva.

Throughout his career John was committed to IAHS: he was Chair of its Precipitation Committee from 1967 to 1971, Editor of HSJ from 1971 to 1979, Secretary General from 1979 to 1987 and President from 1995 to 2001, past-President until 2003. It was in 1971 that he opened the IAHS Press offices in Wallingford, UK to produce both the Journal and the IAHS book series.

His achievements were recognised with the IAHS-UNESCO-WMO International Hydrology Prize in 2004.

To hear more about his extraordinary life and work, you can watch his interview with Keith Beven on the History of Hydrology series on YouTube.

We remember John Rodda as a visionary and a great man whose work will live on in the scientific community and beyond. He will be deeply missed.