“My mother said she wanted me to know that milk didn’t come from a bottle.” Returning to the farm for several years after that, he first became exposed to the problem of soil erosion and the effect it has on water supplies.
[2] As a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey in the 1950s, he and colleague Luna Leopold published pioneering studies on how and why rivers change.
[3][4] His method for sampling particle size distribution of riverbeds became known as the “Wolman Pebble Count” and is still a standard technique for geomorphologists.
[5] Dr. Wolman applied his expertise to local problems beginning in the 1960s, when his report on how runoff from construction projects was choking Maryland's streams with sediment helped lead to new state regulations.
Wolman was also one of the leading forces behind Maryland's sediment and erosion control law, passed in 1970, based on the US federal Clean Water Act.