427 



In short, water is broadly involved with human activity : with the 

 sociology of human relations, the political science of joint human 

 enterprises and decisionmaking, the economic considerations of prop- 

 erty and value and work, the technological aspects of engineering 

 design of human-built structures to serve dozens of separate and dis- 

 tinct purposes, and with the broad analytical, statistical, and techno- 

 logical problem of forecasting and responding to changes in all of 

 these disciplines. 



Growing comflex'ity of Tnodem loater management 



A resource so intimately involved with the survival and well-being 

 of man inevitably reflects the growing complexity of the human con- 

 dition. Each man's uses of water change its quality and its availability 

 for successive uses. Human uses of water and needs for water change 

 in response to the growing density and complexity of an industrial 

 civilization. 



Even the initial decision as to who should make decisions about 

 water is complicated by the nature of water itself. The products and 

 ser^nces resulting from public works to exploit water resources have 

 universal value. But the values from any particular water project 

 serve only some partial geographical segment. Water projects are 

 characteristically of precisely defined geographic scope within a com- 

 munity or region. Since rivers are a primary geographical feature used 

 to mark boundaries between political jurisdictions (nations, States, or 

 communities), water projects frequently involve multiple political 

 jurisdictions. Moreover, the infinity of ways in which water is impor- 

 tant to man means that as the range of government programs in human 

 security and welfare grows wider, an ever-increasing number of agen- 

 cies and departments of government share in decisions regarding 

 water management and development. 



An unmanageably large volume of literature has been produced on 

 the subject of water management. It would be impossible to sift all 

 the available knowledge and thought about the technology and man- 

 agement of this resource. Yet, despite this abundance of data, there 

 remain great gaps in available knowledge, and significant omissions 

 in underlying theory. The interactions of water with man and with 

 other aspects of ecology are endless; an enormous array of research 

 goals must be achieved before anything approaching a definitive 

 knowledge of the role of water in relation to man becomes available. 



Thus, die effective management of water places requirements on 

 basic and applied science to reveal more about the resource, and on the 

 developing skills in information management to bring order and 

 accessibility to the growing volume of information about it. Rather 

 than yes-or-no decisions, water development is coming to present prob- 

 lems of choices among alternatives, conditioned by the particular cir- 

 cumstances prevailing in a particular environment. 



It is becoming increasingly evident that a complete, precise, durable, 

 and universally accepted set of principles governing the suitability of 

 plans to exploit water is not feasible. Preferences — choices among 

 alternatives — can be ascertained, although usually for limited periods 

 of time, but there appear to be no positive laws that fix for all time 

 the correctness of findings — 



As to which projects should or should not be undertaken ; 

 As to what priority should be assigned to each project; 



