In a note to the Department, Keith Clarke stated:
It is with great sorrow that I announce the death last Friday of Dr. Leal Anne Mertes, Professor of Geography in the Department since 1991. As most of us know, Leal endured a decade-long fight against breast cancer.
Leal held a BS from Stanford, and a MA and PhD from the University of Washington, receiving her PhD in 1990. At UCSB she led a career active in research and publishing, and she was known as a caring advisor and mentor. Her interests spanned the dynamics of river channel, floodplain and wetlands interactions; the remote sensing of wetland environments; and the long term evolution of large river systems. She had also devoted a great deal of effort to educational issues, including curriculum design and assessment.
Leal’s funeral will be private. A memorial to her life is being planned for next month, to which her University friends are invited. She is survived by her husband, Jim Wells, and a son, Zachary.
As Chair, I have expressed the entire Department’s sympathy to Jim. Leal’s bright spirit and engaging enthusiasm will be much missed, along with her quest for excellence in scholarship and research. With Leal’s death, UCSB Geography has lost a good friend and a fine scholar.
Leal was an interdisciplinary scientist with BS degrees in both Geology and Biology from Stanford University and MS and PhD degrees in Geology from the University of Washington. To quote her web site, “Her research investigates the geomorphic and hydrologic processes responsible for the development of wetlands and floodplains in large river systems and across watersheds and to develop remote sensing techniques for analysis of wetlands and water properties. The work involves continuum mechanics, sediment transport theory, computational hydrodynamics, GIS, and digital image processing, in addition to more traditional techniques of geomorphology and sedimentology. The nature of this work has led to the development of digital databases in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for detailed spatial analysis of interaction of physical landscape properties with ecosystem properties at regional and watershed scales. Data from remote sensing and numerical modeling are combined with laboratory and field data. In addition to studying the geomorphology and inundation hydrology of the world’s large rivers, work on a regional watershed analysis of the geomorphic properties of rivers contributing sediment to the Santa Barbara Channel has led to quantitative evaluation of the impact of coastal watersheds on coastal waters. Taking advantage of her research expertise, she teaches courses on digital image processing of remote sensing data and rivers.”
As well as being an outstanding teacher and scholar, Leal is remembered for her passion about the environment and her compassion for mankind. And her zest for life and living was just as obvious on a personal and private level. Leal was a great knitter who “made amazing stuff” according to fellow staff knitters, she loved to cook, she was fiercely protective towards her students and staff, she was outspoken about her political beliefs, and she was both defiant and courageous in her 10-year battle against cancer. To quote her husband Jim, “Please know that Leal cherished her work and collaborations and friendships at UCSB. One of the reasons she so much wanted to keep living was because she had not satisfied her curiosity about the way the world works, and she just wanted to keep working on rivers: getting muddy on floodplains; creating beautiful, insightful satellite images, and thinking great thoughts. She was so pleased to be in a place so supportive of her scientific explorations and to be surrounded by such wonderful colleagues.”
