In memoriam: John Briscoe, water resources expert

John Briscoe
John Briscoe at Lake Benmore in New Zealand in 2011

November 18, 2014

Dear Members of the HSPH Community:

It is with much sadness that I write to inform you of the death of Professor John Briscoe, who was a professor of the practice of environmental health in the Department of Environmental Health. John died at age 66 after a struggle with cancer.

John, who also held appointments at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and at the Harvard Kennedy School, spent his career focused on efforts globally to successfully manage and preserve one of our most precious resources—water—with a focus on the developing world. In fact, earlier this year, John received what is known as the “Nobel Prize of Water”—the Stockholm Water Prize—for his “unparalleled contributions to global and local management of water—contributions covering vast thematic, geographic, and institutional environments—that have improved the lives and livelihoods of millions of people worldwide.”

Shortly after John’s appointment at HSPH in 2009, a profile in Harvard Public Health Review summed up his work this way: “Briscoe has studied water from every conceivable angle: how it’s captured, contaminated, diverted, dammed, piped, poeticized, regulated, ritualized, squandered, sanitized, fished, and fought over.” Quoted in that article, former HSPH Dean Barry Bloom said that, to a lot of economists, John was “Mr. Water: the most far-sighted, thoughtful, deeply thinking person in the field.” A 2012 profile of John in Harvard Magazine was titled, aptly, “The Water Tamer.”

A native of South Africa, John earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at the University of Cape Town in 1969 and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering at Harvard University in 1976. Before coming to Harvard, he worked as an engineer in the government water agencies of South Africa and Mozambique; an epidemiologist at the Cholera Research Center in Bangladesh; a professor of water resources at the University of North Carolina; and, for 20 years, at the World Bank, where he helped oversee projects in water resources, irrigation, hydropower, and sanitation. He has consulted on water issues for nonprofits, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and businesses.

At Harvard, John launched the university-wide Harvard Water Security Initiative, which focuses on major challenges in countries around the world, including the ability to provide people with safe drinking water and food, to produce energy and sustain economic growth, and to enhance environmental quality. He taught popular undergraduate and graduate courses on water and was nominated for major teaching and mentoring awards. In addition, he led groups of students from across the university in collaborative research on water management in the Colorado, Indus, Mississippi, Murray-Darling, and Sao Francisco basins.

In addition to the Stockholm Water Prize, John received other prestigious awards, including the Grande Medalha da Inconfidência, one of Brazil’s highest awards; the President’s Award of the International Water Association; and the Stroud Prize for Excellence in Water.

John is survived by his wife Conceicao Andrade, daughter Alexa Briscoe, and three stepchildren, Bela Gary, Marla Benton, and Charles Briscoe. Contributions may be made in John’s memory to The John Briscoe STEM Award: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, for which a development fund has been set up at John’s high school in Kimberley, South Africa. Donations may be made to: St Patrick’s Development Trust Account, Account No.: 2007687526, Nedbank, Chapel Street, Kimberley, South Africa.

Julio Frenk, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D.
Dean of the Faculty, Harvard School of Public Health
T & G Angelopoulos Professor of Public Health and International Development,
Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Kennedy School

Learn more about John’s life and work:

John Briscoe, a water-resource expert who championed dams, dies at 66 (The Washington Post)

John Briscoe, 66, Was Leading Water Security Expert (Harvard Magazine)

John Briscoe, Winner of Water’s Nobel, Dies (Harvard Crimson)

photo courtesy John Briscoe