Glushkov, Viktor

Born Mar. 23, 1883; died 1939. Soviet hydrologist; corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1932); acting member of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1936).

Born in the city of Vernyi (Alma-Ata), Glushkov graduated from the St. Petersburg Communications Institute in 1907. He went to work in Middle Asia, where he led land reclamation work on the Murgab River and created the Hydrometric Department of the Turkestan Region. In 1913 he headed the organization of the Hydrometric Department for European Russia. Glushkov played an active role in the preparation of the GOELRO (State Commission for the Electrification of Russia) plan, and, in 1922, he became director of the first composite hydrologic institution, the Russian Hydrological Institute, which he had helped to create. Glushkov lectured in various institutions of higher learning in Moscow and Leningrad and wrote seminal works on hydrometry, alluviums, hydrologic analysis and computation, and the organization of research. Glushkov’s so-called geographic-hydrological method has particular significance in contemporary hydrological theory. Glushkov invented a number of hydrometrical instruments.