Harold Edwin Hurst

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Harold Edwin Hurst , also called Abu Nil ( father of the Nile ) (born January 1, 1880 near Leicester , † December 7, 1978 near Oxford , Great Britain) was a British hydrologist who, through his long-term studies of the Nile and the resulting mathematical phenomena resulting from hydrological observations became known. These in turn inspired the mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot to work on the Hurst exponent .

Life

Hurst studied physics at the University of Oxford , where he worked for three years after graduating. In 1906 he moved to the Egyptian Survey of Egypt , the first step in a 62-year career in the Egyptian civil service under various governments from Lord Cromer to President Nasser . In 1915 he became head of the natural science department of the Ministry of Public Works , a position he held until his retirement in 1946. He remained associated with the ministry as a scientific advisor until 1968. Hurst died at the age of 98 near Oxford, where he had lived for many years.

Services

The development of the Egyptian irrigation system required reliable hydrological data. In decades of work, Hurst investigated the hydrological conditions of the Nile and its tributaries and collected an enormous amount of data from more than a hundred measuring points in the Nile basin. The results of this work were documented in the eleven volumes of the Nile Basin and numerous supplements, probably the largest existing data collection on a river.

Before his retirement, he published the proposal to compensate for longer periods of drought by storing water on Lake Victoria , Lake Albert , Lake Tana and through the Jonglei Canal to reduce evaporation losses in the Sudd . This concept, known as Century Storage , was based on the huge collection of data on the change in water levels, the flow rates, their sequence over several years and their predictability. It turned out that the empirical data gave a different picture than was to be expected from the theoretical calculations.

The idea of ​​water storage on the upper reaches of the White and Blue Nile was replaced by the concept of the Aswan Dam . Once again, Hurst's calculations, based on his empirical data, showed that the stowage volume required to bridge the worst periods of drought had to be significantly greater than assumed by the theoretical calculations that had been customary up to that point.

Hurst had further developed his knowledge of mathematical phenomena in his publications in 1951, 1952 and 1965. Soon afterwards, Benoît Mandelbrot began his work on the Hurst phenomenon , which eventually led to the Hurst exponent , which was later applied in other fields such as financial theory and cardiology.

Honors

Hurst received a Doctorate (D.Sc.) from Oxford University and the Telford Gold Medal from the Institution of Civil Engineers . He was appointed Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George and, above all, Grand Officer of the Nile Order , the highest order of merit in Egypt.

Fonts (selection)

  • A Discussion of the Observations on Atmospheric Electricity at Helwan Observatory from March 1906 to February 1908. National Printing Department, Cairo 1909.
  • The Magnetic Survey of Egypt and the Sudan. Government Press, Cairo 1915.
  • The Nile Basin. 11 volumes (numerous articles together with P. Phillips, later with RP Black, finally with RP Black and YM Simaika), Government Press, Cairo 1931 to 1978.
  • Long Term Storage Capacity of Reservoirs. In: Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Volume 116 (1951), pp. 770-799.
  • The Nile: A General Account of the River and the Utilization of Its Waters . Constable, London 1952.
  • Long-term Storage: An Experimental Study. Constable, London 1965 (with RP Black and YM Simaika).

literature

  • John V. Sutcliffe: Obituary: Harold Edwin Hurst. In: Hydrological Sciences Bulletin. Vol. 24 (1979), No. 4, pp. 539-541, doi : 10.1080 / 02626667909491892 .
  • Benoît B. Mandelbrot, JR Wallis: Noah, Joseph and operational hydrology. Wat.Resour.Res. 4, 909-918. 1968.
  • Benoît B. Mandelbrot: The Fractal Geometry of Nature Freeman, New York 1977.
  • Benoît Mandelbrot: The (Mis) Behavior of Markets, A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward . Basic Books, 2004.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The article is largely based on the information provided by John V. Sutcliffe in his obituary
  2. ↑ analogously: dewatering for a century of drought
  3. ↑ In the literature the term rescaled range referred
personal data
SURNAME Hurst, Harold Edwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British hydrologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH at Leicester
DATE OF DEATH 7th December 1978
Place of death at Oxford