Discussion: Paper 9

Discussion: Paper 9

Dr A. L. Downing, Water Pollution Research Laboratory

Mr Reeve has started from the basic premise, that one must ask oneself in considering any new organization what are the objectives one wants to achieve, and then decide the organization. All too often one gets fascinated with details of the organization which then become paramount instead of the job which the or ganization is set up to do. Mr Reeve has defined objectives as being those of optimizing the manage ment of water resources to provide the environment that the public wants and the water supply it needs at the most economical cost. He offers guidance on this, particularly in § 30, from which I assume that his belief is that essentially what is needed is some form of simulation model which will allow one to predict the consequences of any given management decision on the system and decide the best route to follow.