On April 11, the Prairie Research Institute honored employees for their outstanding achievements and excellent work. Selection committees composed of staff from across the organization reviewed multiple strong nominations before selecting these 2018 honorees: ISWS Daniel Abrams was awared the Early Career Investigator Award.
Daniel Abrams joined PRI in 2013 to work as a Groundwater Flow Modeler on regional water supply planning, a major project at the Illinois State Water Survey for many years. He has been instrumental in building the Illinois Groundwater Model, one of the largest groundwater flow models in the world. Based on this work, it has been determined that the deep sandstone aquifers in northeastern Illinois are being exploited in an unsustainable manner. Daniel’s work and that of his colleagues suggest the resources will be depleted in as little as 30 years. Daniel was instrumental in identifying the scope of the problem, and most importantly, developing tools to help communicate that message to major stakeholders in the region. In support of his nomination, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources wrote that “without his efforts, the water supply program…would not have achieved the success of seeing multiple water users moving to other water supply sources. His efforts are ensuring a sustainable water supply for the future.”