ABSTRACT
When he created the word “hydrogeology’’ in 1802, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck defined it as the “study of the influence that water has on the surface of the earth . . .’’. This is a meaning that is, in fact, different from its present-day meaning, but which nevertheless foresaw the advent of the “Science of groundwater’’, which it has come to mean and as it has been adopted by all languages (Figure 1).
