Water resources and land use planning: A systems approach. P. Laconte and Y. Y. Haines (Eds). Nato...
1
EARTH SURFACE PROCESSES AND LANDFORMS, VOL. 9, 195-196 (1984) BOOK REVIEWS WATER RESOURCES AND LAND USE PLANNING. A SYSTEMS APPROACH. P. Laconte and Y.Y. Haines (Eds). Nato Advanced Study Institutes Series D No. 11, Martinus Nijhoff, 1982. What should a reader expect of a text? Common answers might include overall coherence; relationships between the various chapters; that the title reflects the contents; that the material is of sufficient significance to merit publication. There can be no question that the topic of this book is significant and merits publication. The relationships between land-use and water resources are intimate and important but have long been lost in an institutional ecology and professional training that lar- gely segregates land and water planning and manage- ment. This volume might be expected to make good some of the dichotomy of interests especially in view of the introductory remarks of the Editors concerning the objectives and goals of the book which appeared to emphasize relationships, communication, transfer of knowledge, and the shared experiences of different pro- jects. This the book has failed to achieve. The book reports the proceedings of a conference on land use planning and water resources that was held under the auspices of NATO in Belgium in 1978. The text is organized into three main sections. The first concerns systemsmodelling methods in a general sense. The second section considers aspects of the three main subsystems involved-the land, water and human elements. The third section is an attempt at synthesis through a series of case studies. Like many texts based on the proceedings of a con- ference this volume is a hybrid. It is a mixture of styles, quality, content and detail. Some of the papers are long and deal almost entirely with water treatment technology whilst others are brief and try to address the theoretical problems of decision making in difficult bureaucratic systems. Let us be clear that this is a valuable book containing a great deal of excellent material. The theme however was over-ambitious. The contents failed to blend and the title did not reflect the contents. Had the editors used a sharper scalpel to shorten some of the papers, had discussions of the papers been introduced and had the editors permitted themselves a lot more room to gather the themes together, then greater success might have been achieved. As it stands the text is more an illustration of the variations in the interests and directions of those con- cerned with land and water management. This in itself is revealing and possibly valuable. Perhaps in the pursuit of a more unified approach we could start by seekingcamera ready copy with an agreed referencing format! ADRIAN MCDONALD School of Geography SEDIMENT BUDGETS AND ROUTING IN FORESTED DRAINAGE BASINS. F. J. Swanson, R. J. Janda, T. Dunne and D. N. Swanston (Eds). U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station General Technical Report PNW-141, 1982. No. of pages: 165. Measurements or estimates of process rates in drainage basin geomorphology should ideally be coupled with information on sediment movement paths and on re- lationships between sediment transport and sediment storage. A fuller picture of processes is valuable for both geomorphologists and land managers, as was argued at a 1979 workshop at Corvallis, Oregon. The resulting volume, with a special emphasis on forested basins, includes twelve papers, two extended abstracts, five discussion group summaries and an editorial introduc- tion and summary. Most papers report on field studies from the western half of the United States. There are also contributions on computer and hardware modelling (Simons et af., Rice, Harvey) and examples from New Zealand, Virginia and New Hampshire. In a sequel to the paper by Dietrich and Dunne (Zeitschrqt fur Geornorphologie, Supp. 29, 19 1 - 206, 1978), Dietrich et al. present a useful general discussion of ‘Construction of Sediment Budgets for Drainage Basins’ with examples from Washington and Oregon. The case studies by Lehre, Kelsey and Madej are closely related in approach. Biotic aspects are to the fore in contributions on dendrochronology (Hupp and Sigafoos), organic debris dams (Megahan, Likens and Bilby) and management practices (Swanson and 0 1984 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
-
Upload
adrian-mcdonald -
Category
Documents
-
view
213 -
download
0
Transcript of Water resources and land use planning: A systems approach. P. Laconte and Y. Y. Haines (Eds). Nato...
EARTH SURFACE PROCESSES AND LANDFORMS, VOL. 9, 195-196 (1984)
BOOK REVIEWS
WATER RESOURCES AND LAND USE PLANNING. A SYSTEMS APPROACH. P. Laconte and Y. Y. Haines (Eds). Nato Advanced Study Institutes Series D No. 11, Martinus Nijhoff, 1982.
What should a reader expect of a text? Common answers might include overall coherence; relationships between the various chapters; that the title reflects the contents; that the material is of sufficient significance to merit publication. There can be no question that the topic of this book is significant and merits publication. The relationships between land-use and water resources are intimate and important but have long been lost in an institutional ecology and professional training that lar- gely segregates land and water planning and manage- ment. This volume might be expected to make good some of the dichotomy of interests especially in view of the introductory remarks of the Editors concerning the objectives and goals of the book which appeared to emphasize relationships, communication, transfer of knowledge, and the shared experiences of different pro- jects. This the book has failed to achieve.
The book reports the proceedings of a conference on land use planning and water resources that was held under the auspices of NATO in Belgium in 1978. The text is organized into three main sections. The first concerns systems modelling methods in a general sense. The second
section considers aspects of the three main subsystems involved-the land, water and human elements. The third section is an attempt at synthesis through a series of case studies.
Like many texts based on the proceedings of a con- ference this volume is a hybrid. It is a mixture of styles, quality, content and detail. Some of the papers are long and deal almost entirely with water treatment technology whilst others are brief and try to address the theoretical problems of decision making in difficult bureaucratic systems. Let us be clear that this is a valuable book containing a great deal of excellent material. The theme however was over-ambitious. The contents failed to blend and the title did not reflect the contents. Had the editors used a sharper scalpel to shorten some of the papers, had discussions of the papers been introduced and had the editors permitted themselves a lot more room to gather the themes together, then greater success might have been achieved. As it stands the text is more an illustration of the variations in the interests and directions of those con- cerned with land and water management. This in itself is revealing and possibly valuable. Perhaps in the pursuit of a more unified approach we could start by seeking camera ready copy with an agreed referencing format!
ADRIAN MCDONALD School of Geography
SEDIMENT BUDGETS AND ROUTING IN FORESTED DRAINAGE BASINS. F. J. Swanson, R. J. Janda, T. Dunne and D. N. Swanston (Eds). U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station General Technical Report PNW-141, 1982. No. of pages: 165.
Measurements or estimates of process rates in drainage basin geomorphology should ideally be coupled with information on sediment movement paths and on re- lationships between sediment transport and sediment storage. A fuller picture of processes is valuable for both geomorphologists and land managers, as was argued at a 1979 workshop at Corvallis, Oregon. The resulting volume, with a special emphasis on forested basins, includes twelve papers, two extended abstracts, five
discussion group summaries and an editorial introduc- tion and summary.
Most papers report on field studies from the western half of the United States. There are also contributions on computer and hardware modelling (Simons et af . , Rice, Harvey) and examples from New Zealand, Virginia and New Hampshire. In a sequel to the paper by Dietrich and Dunne (Zeitschrqt fur Geornorphologie, Supp. 29, 19 1 - 206, 1978), Dietrich et al. present a useful general discussion of ‘Construction of Sediment Budgets for Drainage Basins’ with examples from Washington and Oregon. The case studies by Lehre, Kelsey and Madej are closely related in approach. Biotic aspects are to the fore in contributions on dendrochronology (Hupp and Sigafoos), organic debris dams (Megahan, Likens and Bilby) and management practices (Swanson and
0 1984 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
![Broek, David - Elementary Engineering Fracture Mechanics [Martinus Nijhoff 1984].pdf](https://static.fdocuments.us/doc/165x107/563db8de550346aa9a97b2cb/broek-david-elementary-engineering-fracture-mechanics-martinus-nijhoff.jpg)
