François-Alphonse Forel (February 2, 1841 - August 7, 1912) was a Swiss scientist who pioneered the study of lakes, and is thus considered the founder of limnology.

Born in Morges on Lake Geneva, he worked as a professor of medicine at the University of Lausanne.

But his real love was the lake; his investigations of biology, chemistry, water circulation, and sedimentation, and most importantly their interactions, established the foundation of a new discipline. In his chief work, Le Léman , published in three volumes between 1892 and 1904, he named his activity limnology in analogy with oceanography ("limnography" could have been confused with the limnograph , which measures water level in lakes).

He discovered the phenomenon of density currents in lakes, and explained seiches, the rhythmic oscillations observed in enclosed waters.

The Institute F.-A. Forel of the University of Geneva is named after Forel.