Formal models in the design of water resource systems

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Abstract
New methods for designing water resource systems are being evolved as part of a general social tendency toward expressing social problems in the formal modes that have hitherto been restricted to scientific and engineering problems. Two general types of model have been fruitful in the field of water resource development: the simulation model and the analytic model. In simulation models temporal sequences of events are reproduced on electronic computers on a time scale in which minutes represent decades, leading to convenient estimates of the consequences of design decisions even in complicated circumstances. In analytic models consequences are expressed as explicit mathematical functions of design variables. Simulations are awkward when a wide range of design decisions has to be evaluated ; analytic models cannot be applied to practical problems without drastically simplifying them. But the two methods can be used in tandem, with analytic models delimiting the range within which simulation is required.

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