A Giant Has Fallen
My dear friend Arjen Hoekstra – a giant in the water community — died last night while riding his bike to his home in the Netherlands.
More elaborate and comprehensive accolades will be surely be forthcoming, but I’d like my friends and students to know how much this guy meant to me, and to the water world.
Arjen created the concept of ‘water footprints.’ He was a student of Tony Allan’s at King’s College in London when Tony conceived of ‘virtual water’, i.e., the idea that as we transport commodities around the globe they carry with them virtual (embedded) water, meaning the water that was required to produce the commodity in the first place. It didn’t take Arjen long to realize that somebody needed to start quantifying how much water was embedded in those commodities!
You can find a full catalog of products on the website of the Water Footprint Network, the organization Arjen helped create with Ruth Mathews and others. Brilliant graduate students from around the world like Mesfin Mekonnen of Ethiopia flocked to the University of Twente to work with Arjen, their mentor. Arjen became the maestro of an orchestra of scientists working feverishly to compute the water footprints not just of commodity products, but of entire companies, cities, and countries.
Arjen was explosively productive. I admired him not just for his technical output and intelligence, but also for his undying commitment to helping other people and entities act in the most responsible, sustainable manner possible in their water use. We worked closely together (with many others) in the creation of the Alliance for Water Stewardship, which became the world’s first comprehensive certification program for companies aspiring to use water wisely.
Dear Arjen, I hope you will finally take a break for some richly-deserved rest, my friend.
I’m left wondering how you would compute the water footprint of a giant standing on a cloud?
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This is terrible news. Thank you, Brian, for sharing your thoughts.
What a terrible loss. Thank you Brian for remembering Arjen in this way. His work has been, and will remain, important for understanding, and dealing with, water issues.
sorry for your loss. May you carry some his teachings into your future.
I am without words, still cannot believe it… He went much, much to soon.. Thank you for your text Brian
Devastating, my sincere sympathies to you, all his friends, colleagues, students and family. I am in shock, just spoke ot him a few days ago.
This is very sad indeed Brian. I have read and was so inspired by Arjen’s work on water footprint. I have quoted his findings many a times on my various blogposts. He will be missed indeed but glad that we have other inspirations like yourself, Dr. Gleick, John Matthews and others to fill in this void. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. May he RIP.
A terrible loss of such a great scientist!
My condolences.
Dear Brian and others responding,
Thank you for your kind words on Arjen. We’re all devastated by this sad news about his sudden and unexpected demise. Please consider sharing your thoughts in the online condolences register as well, via the link below. We’ll share it with his family later on.
https://www.utwente.nl/en/et/memoriam/
Rick
Completely shocked to read about this sad news. This is a terrible loss of a great person and very gifted water scientist. His WF work was our guide and Arjan my guru to turn to for measuring our company water footprint in 2013. We worked with a consultant using his WF method and contacted him a few times then to check on things to ensure the correct results. Wishing his family and friends lots of strength the coming period.