Session A: Discussion

Sir Peter KENT, Chairman, Natural Environmental Research Council {Chairman of the Session)

May I express my official interest in this subject? The Natural Environmental Research Council impinges on the hydrological field in three ways: the Institute of Hydrology is one of its arms; in the Institute of Geological Sciences, the Department of Hydrogeology is very much concerned with the underground aspects of water and water supply; the Freshwater Biological Association, located at Windermere and in Dorset, is also much concerned with surface waters, river control, etc., and biological aspects of rivers and lakes. Anyone who attempts to make any change in the environment nowadays comes under attack water engineers no less than others. Part of the general population seems to take the attitude that it is practicable and possible to keep things as they are, to keep the open country in its present state, as though this were its natural state, whereas the whole of Britain in particular is only too obviously an artificial landscape. But with continuous growth of population, adjustments to the landscape and development of resources are quite inevitable. Work on reservoirs, the transfers between rivers, etc., has to go ahead, and an educational operation has to be conducted to keep pace. The papers in this symposium will discuss some of the problems in the field of water supply and management.