Hydraulic Engineering: Global Challenge

Abstract

At fifty years from the foundation of the Hydraulic Division, hydraulicians and hydraulic engineers face an unprecedented new global challenge stemming from the overburdening of the environment and the accelerating demands for water caused by the rapid growth of population and industry world‐wide. The principal dimensions of the challenge are reviewed, from subsidence and falling water tables to droughts, from floods to spills and dumping, from the need for hydropower to aging of the hydraulic infrastructure, from inadequate technology transfer to a new hydraulic engineering for life in space. To respond to the challenge, the hydraulic engineering profession must reorganize its technical efforts, and take the leadership in developing new sociotechnological synergisms.