József Tóth

József Tóth (June 22, 1933 – July 3, 2026) was a Hungarian-born hydrogeologist and academic who was Professor Emeritus of the University of Alberta in Canada, and Honorary Professor at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary.

Background József Tóth was born in Békés, Hungary on June 22, 1933. In 1952, he was admitted to the University of Sopron as a student of geophysics. He took part in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, after the fall of which he fled to Austria and then the Netherlands. He resumed his studies at Utrecht University, and in 1960 emigrated to the Canadian province of Alberta with his wife and two children. In 1965, he received his doctorate in Utrecht. He died on July 3, 2026, at the age of 93.

Career Although he was employed as a geophysicist at the Research Council of Alberta, he soon had to work as a groundwater consultant in Hydrogeology. Tóth solved the Laplace equation for a "unit basin" geometry. Superposing a sinusoidal constant head surface on the unit basin "resulted in the concept of composite flow patterns", referred to as "hierarchically nested flow systems." Hornberger et al., Deming, and Freeze and Cherry's Groundwater, the cover of which prominently featured his regional flow diagram. He rose to be the Head of the Groundwater Department at the Research Council. He also taught hydrogeology courses at the University of Alberta and University of Calgary and was a full professor at the University of Alberta (Rostron, Benjamin J, p. 205-206 in Deming, 2002. President's Award – International Association of Hydrogeologists (1999) M. King Hubbert Award – National Groundwater Association (2003) Theis Award – American Institute of Hydrology (2004) Magyar Érdemrend középkereszt polgári tagozata állami kitüntetés (2013) External Member Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2016)

Significant works