‘Team’ Approach To Water Control Problems Urged

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30630, 22 December 1964, Page 24

‘Team’ Approach To Water Control Problems Urged

A team approach to thinking and action in the control and use of water was recommended by Professor Robert E. Dils. visiting Fulbright research scholar from Colorado State University, at the National water symposium in Wellington.

Foresters, engineers, agriculturalists and scientists were told they should consider the needs and skills of each other. Legal, social and economic aspects should also receive consideration. Professor Dils said greater activity in relation to waterresource planning in the United States had been achieved only by strengthening co-op-eration, co-ordination and inter-agency communication. Multilateral action was not confined to persons actively engaged but also to the end result of their efforts. The needs of domestic usage, agriculture, industry, electricity and recreation were all factors taken into account in planning action. “The great need in multipurpose planning is for all the professions to develop a common language,” said Professor Dils. “Only thus can good teamwork be developed.”

This “common language” was the science of hydrology. Development of hydrology was vital to future work in New Zealand. In the United States a water-resources committee had been established “at White House level” and universities had combined to form a council on hydrology. New graduate programmes had been arranged and federal agencies and the universities were acting together. Research institutes and training were now set up by government grants, and 56,000,000 dollars was being spent in 1964 on water research.

The United States had played a major part in the initiation of the International Hydrological Decade, and would be participating fully. It was possible that a foreign fellowship scheme would be instituted, he said. Illustrations of features of his own work were shown by Professor Dils. These included snow management by natural and artificial barriers; experiments with additives to

advance or retard snow melt; forest thinning to increase stream flow by up to 30 per cent: control of grazing practices; vegetative control of road fill (an approach also used in the Australian Snowy Mountains scheme) and reducing transpiration of water by eradicating useless plants.

Professor Dils will be in New Zealand until June, 1965. It is hoped that later in his visit he will be able to investigate upstream management of catchment areas and recommend new lines of action. One area to be studied is the Waimakariri catchment in North Canterbury.