Luna Leopold

Who was Luna Leopold?

Luna Bergere Leopold was a leading U.S. geomorphologist and hydrologist, and son of Aldo Leopold. He received a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1936; an M.S. in Physics-Meteorology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1944; and a Ph.D. in Geology from Harvard University in 1950.

Leopold is widely known in his primary field for his multitude of work in fluvial geomorphology and for the classic book, Fluvial Processes in Geomorphology, that he wrote with Gordon Wolman and John Miller.

Leopold suggested that a new philosophy of water management is needed, one based on geologic, geographic, and climatic factors as well as traditional economic, social, and political factors. He argued that the management of water resources cannot be successful as long as it is naïvely perceived from an economic and political standpoint, as it is in the status quo.