INLAND} WATER SURVEY 363 
‘ The land along any river may be divided into three parts :— 
‘ (1) The river channel, which all agree ought not to be encroached upon. 
“(2) The middle land, usually dry but sometimes flooded. 
“(3) The high land above all floods. 
“It is the increased occupation of the middle land that causes most of 
the trouble.’ 
This statement is largely applicable to this country, although conditions 
are different in many respects. Reliable data as to the volume of flood 
flows in past years are lacking in the case of all but one or two rivers. | It is 
well known that. river channels have been affected by artificial works, and 
that in many places houses have been built on land liable to occasional 
flooding. If any material alleviation is to be afforded to such areas by the 
River Catchment Boards a thorough study of the river flows is a first essential. 
47. Absence of co-ordination—The foregoing gives a general indication 
of the diversity of interests concerned with water conservancy in some 
form. Numerically there are believed to be, in round figures, over 800 
local authorities and joint boards for water supply ; some 300 water com- 
panies and over 1,000 private proprietors; 46 catchment boards at 
present established ; and over 500 electricity stations, in addition to canal 
authorities, pollution boards, fishery boards and hydro-electric under- 
takings.’ Private interests, such as mills and riparian owners generally, 
are innumerable. 
As has been mentioned, some of these bodies take gaugings and measure- 
ments and. keep records for their own purposes, but, so far as it has been 
possible to ascertain, these form a small minority, and in general there is 
an entire absence of co-ordination or of any organisation for systematic 
recording of data. 
III. Posst1BLE ORGANISATION AND CONTROL OF AN INLAND WATER 
SuRVEY By CENTRAL AUTHORITY. 
8. Examples of organisations in other countries —National water survey 
organisations have been in existence in many countries for a number of 
years. The practice abroad, so far as is exemplified in that of four 
representative countries reviewed in Memorandum B of this Report, is, 
however, by no means uniform. In three out of four cases the observation 
of rainfall is the function of a meteorological survey which is not only 
separate and distinct from that of stream and water storage measurements, 
but is itself the subject of diverse arrangement ; in Italy alone, with a very 
recent organisation on national lines, is the whole series of duties combined 
in a single service—the Servizio Idrografico Italiano. In Canada meteoro- 
logical observations are associated with and controlled by the Department 
of Marine ; in the United States the Weather Bureau is attached to the 
Department of Agriculture, while in Switzerland there is a Station Centrale 
de Meétéorologie, or Meteorologische Zentralanstalt. Stream measure- 
ments and gauging are undertaken in Canada by the Dominion Water 
Power and Hydrometric Bureau, which is a branch of the Department of 
the Interior. In the United States the duties are undertaken by the 
Geological Survey, similarly a branch of the Department of the Interior, 
as one of a group of activities carried on by five co-ordinate branches. In 
addition to this, measurements of river levels are made in certain cases by 
the Weather Bureau, which also issues flood warnings. In Switzerland 
there is a special Service des Eaux (Amt fiir Wasserwirtschaft) which devotes 
itself entirely to hydrometry and the economics of water development. 
