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Massive flooding in the upper Mississippi and lower Missouri river basins last summer caused widespread human distress and provoked sober public questioning of the wisdom of the policies and progra...

In the roughly 70 yr since the concept of integrated water management in river basins replaced primarily single-purpose management, there has been increasing question by international science and policy agencies as to the full consequences of such strategies for both social and environmental systems and for fulfillment of the notions underlying sustainable development. The experience suggests there is continuing urgent need for expanding the range of management measures considered as part of the planning process; for deepening the quality of criteria to judge each measure for reconciling the various evaluation principles; and for making incisive, correct post-audits of what actually resulted from their applications. It also reminds us that realization of the full potential of truly integrated water management may be very long in coming. Problems of improved analysis and of necessary institutional reform are formidable.

The need for improved institutional arrangements has been recognized for many years; prior to Mar del Plata, and most recently at Dublin and Rio. Consensus seems to be em erging that a new global organization should be created from representatives of local, national, regional and international organizations embracing environmental, economic and political concerns. It would promote exchange of information and experience to define issues and methods deserving of attention, and would critically appraise previous actions in selected sectors and areas of water management. It should not duplicate existing organizations .

No single resource development project has aroused more controversy than the high dam that stores the flow of the Nile River above the first cataract at Aswan. It is praised as the mainstay of the Egyptian economy and vilified as an environmental catastrophe. Twenty-one years after its completion there has been sufficient time to permit a first approximation of what is known about the dam's environmental effects and how they compare to what was anticipated when engineers and politicians decided to undertake the massive project. Although the evidence from post-audit study over the past decade is far from complete, there is enough to warrant general observations on direct economic impacts and to suggest several possible lessons of importance to scientists engaged in predicting and tracing environmental linkages from major water projects.

The United Nations General Assembly has instructed the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme to keep the world environmental situation under review. In 1982, 10 years after the UN Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm, the first comprehensive report on the state of the global environment is being published. The present paper, by the Editors of that Report, summarizes its main findings. It first reviews changes in the sectors of The Biosphere (while recognizing that the interlinkages between them have been stressed increasingly during the past decade), before turning to the human components of the total Man—environment system.In the atmosphere, rising carbon dioxide concentrations, acidification of rain and snow in or by industrial regions, and stratospheric ozone depletion, remain the chief concerns, although the last has not yet been demonstrated instrumentally. In the oceans, pollution (including oil) has not been shown to have more than a local impact on ecosystems, and overall fishery yields have continued to rise slowly and erratically despite some overexploitation. The world's freshwater resources are better known than in 1970, and pollution control and the prevention of problems in irrigated agriculture have advanced; but the targets of the Drinking Water and Sanitation Decade appear less attainable as time passes. Mineral production rose without a concomitant increase in environmental damage. Changes in terrestrial life—especially loss of tropical forests—were the subject of widely varying estimates. Food production rose, but fell short of needs in many areas, while desertification, waterlogging, salinization, pest-resistance, post-harvest crop-losses, and the side-effects of agricultural chemicals, remained serious problems.The dominance of the human element in the Manenvironment system was increasingly recognized during the decade. Human population growth slowed somewhat, except in Africa, although the world total passed 4,400 millions in 1980. The cities of the developing world expanded rapidly, outstripping public services and threatening new problems. In the Third World, infectious and parasitic diseases remained major killers, whereas hypertension, coronary heart disease, and cancers—some due to self-inflicted influence—dominated the statistics in developed nations: environmental factors remained important in both. The 1970s showed that industrial growth could occur without environmental damage or unacceptable cost. The energy crisis of 1974 had a serious impact on developing countries with strategies based on cheap oil, and firewood shortages led to severe environmental problems there also: in contrast, many developed countries were able to adjust their energy plans with only moderate difficulty.Transport and international tourism grew dramatically during the decade, consuming energy and land, and inspiring countermeasures to curb pollution, increase safety, and avoid social and environmental disturbances in areas that were frequented by many visitors. Environmental education schemes expanded—especially in developed countries, where the coverage of environmental issues in popular media grew dramatically between 1960 and 1970, falling back subsequently. The environmental impact of past wars and increasing military preparations caused concern, and the arms race continued to absorb resources that developing countries could ill afford.Reviewing the decade, four dominant trends can be recognized. First, scientific and popular interest in environmental protection have come together to form a new kind of conservation movement. Second, there has been a data explosion in the environmental field, but much of the information is of limited value in assessing trends or as a foundation for decisions and actions. Third, new understanding of the structure and functioning of environmental systems offers a prospect of more reliable planning. Fourth and finally, it has become apparent that the lack of social organization, education, training, and political will, are commonly the limiting factors in environmental improvement, rather than a shortage of scientific knowledge.

Understanding of processes of change in the global environment comes from analysis of evidence that spans the boundaries between nations and between disciplines. Scientists are obliged to work across those boundaries in a variety of ways if they are to arrive at reasonably accurate judgements as to what is known or not known about the alterations that are taking place in the air, water, soil, and biota, of the Earth. One of the devices which they have used since 1969 is the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE).

Egypt during 1952–1960 achieved a more rapid and proportionately larger improvement in potable water supply for its rural population than any other developing country. The way in which this was done laid the groundwork for later difficulties in maintenance and extension of services. Similar problems arose in the Fayoum project in 1953–1964. A program for basic village services initiated in 1979 applied some of the lessons learned in the earlierprogram, but raised new environmental issues. The early change in water service was not followed by striking reductions in prevalence of childhood disease.

drainage basin programs. The day when one water project can be considered independent of others in the same drainage basin has passed. This statement is presented as a "fact" because the idea of unified programs is firmly imbedded in the survey reports prepared by federal and approved by state agencies which form the basis for the huge volume of new construction authorized by Congress during recent years.

Although precipitation was deficient to a greater extent than ever before during the spring and summer of 1934 in many parts of the United States west of the Appalachians, most of the public water supplies of the nation proved to be adequate. The abnormally small run-off and the recession of the shallow ground-water table, which caused severe shortage of water for domestic use and for livestock in numerous rural areas, resulted in general and acute shortage of public supplies in only a few sections of the country. The conditions resulting from the drought focused attention on certain areas in which unfavorable geologic and hydrologie conditions hinder the development of supplies that are adequate during very dry years, and on specific municipalities which have failed to make efficient provision for the use of sources that are readily available. In an effort to discover the areas of especially difficult environmental conditions, and the municipalities having deficient collecting systems, the Water Resources Section of the National Resources Board last autumn requested the aid of the American Water Works Association in determining the public supplies which suffered shortage during 1934.

The time is ripe to step up and expand current efforts to understand the great interlocking systems of air, water, and minerals, that nourish the Earth. This is essential for a reliable assessment of the opportunities for enhancing food production on land and sea. Moreover, without vigorous action towards that goal, nations will be seriously handicapped in trying to cope with proven and suspected threats to ecosystems, and to human health and welfare, resulting from alterations in the cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, and related materials.

(1987). Editorial: The Ozone Hole and Knowledge Gaps. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development: Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. i-i.