on the important topic of visual-cultural wetland values and belongs on your bookshelf if this is your field.

John A. Thonet Thonet Associates South Orange, New Jersey

Frontiers in Hydraulic Engineering, Hung Tao Shen (Editor). Proceedings of a Conference, American Society of Civil Engineers. 1983. 617 pp.

BOOK REVIEWS

This publication constitutes the Proceedings of a Con- ference on the theme “Frontiers of Hydraulic Engineering,” sponsored jointly by the Hydraulics Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- logy, and the Boston Society of Civil Engineers. The Con- ference was held at MIT on August 9-12, 1983, and the Pro- ceedings are dedicated to the memory of Hugo B. Fischer who died May 22, 1983, as a result of a mid-air collision be- tween two glider aircraft.

Paperbound in 5% x 8%-inch format are 9 1 papers, nearly all about six pages in length, and 49 abstracts each about %-page in length. The papers are generally well presented, printed by offset directly from authors’ manuscripts, and well-illustrated by charts and graphs. The printing standards are high.

The papers are arranged in 35 technical sessions, six or seven of which include only abstracts. Since these do not in- clude references, their usefulness may be restricted to the authors’ names and addresses, for any readers who wish to further pursue the subject matter so briefly described.

The remaining papers can also hardly be said to be full- length; nevertheless they do offer a concise and time-saving summary of on-going research. As a fast reference, especially using the handy subject index at the back, the book should be useful, for example, to all graduate students in hydraulics, especially for writing projects in a variety of graduate courses.

The subject matter covered by the (short) papers is not necessarily even: “Mixing Processes in Stratified Flow,” 4 pa- pers; “Groundwater Quality Modeling,” 6 papers; “Sediment Transport,” 13 papers; “Hydraulic Structures,” 3 papers; ‘‘Coastal Processes and Bank Erosion,” 8 papers; “Ice Pheno- mena,” 12 papers; “Computational Hydraulics and Programs,” 14 papers; “Dams, Their Impacts and Spillway Aeration,” 13 papers; “Risk and Reliability,” 3 papers; “Hydrology,” 12 pa- pers; and “Urban Stormwater,” 3 papers. This breakdown, however, is necessarily arbitrary and it may be useful to beg, borrow, or buy a copy of the nine contents pages before de- ciding to invest in a personal copy.

The book is primarily intended for the use of the conferees, but should warrant a home in University libraries, wherever there is a sizable graduate school in Civil Engineering Hy- draulics. It will be useful in agencies and larger consulting offices where quick access must be made to available research expertise. But, like all conference proceedings, the useful life of the book may not be longer than (say) two years, by which time it will no doubt be rendered out-of-date by more recent conferences.

629

As a record of the conference, the book is no doubt worth- while, but even as a guide to the national research effort in hydraulic engineering, it is not completely successful. Certainly some readers may be made more aware of recent advances in specific areas of hydraulic engineering, but can this be true of the entire area of hydraulic engineering? No, the book is a col- lection of 90 short papers and 50 abstracts submitted to a general conference in Hydraulic Engineering, neatly and com- petently presented and arranged into 35 groups, i.e., about five papers to a group, and one or two groups to a subject area.

Many of the topics are well-covered, e.g., ice and sediment transport in rivers, with a group of papers on the state of re- search on ice-hydraulics problems being particularly well- organized, well-written, and informative.

Some of the material may be held to be controversial. For example, the inclusion of discussions on linear, event hydrology and SCS-based methodology in a tome on the “Frontiers of Hydraulic Research.” The hydrology section has little to say about the new 32-bit or even 16-bit microcomputer hardware and software environment. Not very inspiring, in 1984.

Nevertheless, if hydraulic research is your life, try to get your organization to order a copy; if you spend a few hours reading the book you will doubtless find several papers of deep interest. A phone call to the authors will probably result in a more beneficial source of information, such as a research report or thesis. You should do this soon, since graduate students and other researchers have a habit of moving to a new address after a year or two.

William Jan1 es McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

An Investigation of the Carrying Capacity of the Monocacy River as a Scenic and Recreation Resource (three volumes), Fred R. Kuss, et al. Technical Report 67, Water Resources Research Center, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. 1982. This study, according to the authors, is an attempt to syn-

thesize an informational resource in order to serve as a basis for developing a management plan for the Monocacy River Corridor. The Monocacy River is a tributary of the Potomac and joins it upstream from Washington, D.C. The basin itself is approximately 975 squar:: miles in area and includes much of scenic, cultural, historical, and recreational value. The basin has been subdivided into two corridors for the purpose of the study: a) the watershed for general analysis, and b) the Mono- cacy Study Area (criteria developed in Vol. I) for detailed analysis including computer mapping.

Volume I (142 pp.) is a characterization of the river and defined corridors. It includes detailed descriptions of land use, physical resources (geology, topography, hydrology), soils, water quality, flora and fauna, and areas of historical signifi- cance, as well as archeological resources. Each of these sections contains many tables and graphs and extensive bibliographies.

WATER RESOURCES BULLETIN