Stefan Helmut Doerr

The 2011 Philippe Duchaufour Medal is awarded to Stefan Helmut Doerr for his internationally recognised achievements in the field of soil science, with special emphasis on his contributions to soil hydrology and erosion, particularly through his research into soil water repellency.

Stefan Helmut Doerr was educated and received a diploma in Geography, Geology & Botany from the University of Tübingen in 1993. He then moved to Wales, where in 1998 he obtained his PhD at the Swansea University. He has worked there up to the present day, contributing greatly to research on soil water repellency. In 2000 he was awarded the Young Person’s Award for his contribution to soil conservation by the European Society for Soil Conservation. Stefan Doerr has developed a new way to understand how water repellency affects the soil system. He has published an impressive portfolio of well-cited, excellent single-authored and multi-authored papers, and book chapters, including 80 peer-reviewed articles, 11 books, 13 book chapters and 154 conference abstracts. He is widely cited by other scientists (1524 citations, h-index: 21), and has established himself as a leading scientist in the field of soil hydrology and erosion. There is no question that he has raised the status of soil water repellency to a major field of study within soil science, and his contribution has greatly advanced our understanding of soil system science. Stefan Doerr is highly respected as the leading researcher in post-fire soil water repellency and its relationship to runoff and erosion. His early research involved collaboration with Portuguese and British colleagues, but these collaborative links have rapidly expanded to involve work with colleagues from Australia, the USA, Canada, Spain, Holland and across the whole of Europe. His contribution also includes work as guest editor for special issues on the topic of soil water repellency and in fire effects on soils in some of the best journals in hydrology and soil science, and being currently the Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Wildland Fire, which is a high impact factor journal. Moreover he has contributed considerably to the formation of new research and promoted the exchange of knowledge through organizing meetings and promoting the participation of many research teams in joint projects. He has supported the EGU as the convener of several SSS sessions during the last 7 years, which were consistently amongst the most attended SSS sessions. Stefan Doerr is a remarkably energetic, intellectually alert and enthusiastic scientist, and his charismatic role in meetings and conferences has been an important driver for the work of other scientists and for soil science.