PREFACE
This is the fifth volume of Developments in Hydraulic Engineering, the publication of
which started in the autumn of 1983. During the intervening years one of the main aims
of the series has remained unchanged, i.e. to publish in each volume a number of
chapters—considerably more extensive than papers in technical journals, but shorter than
monographs—each giving an authoritative and comprehensive up-to-date review of the
state-of-the-art of a subject area within hydraulic engineering.
The first two volumes were oriented each broadly towards a main theme without being
too narrow. Volume 1 dealt with the role and some applications of computational
hydraulics in hydraulic structures design and with irrigation structures and related
sediment problems; the hydraulic structures orientation continued in the second volume
concentrating on vibration and operation of structures and on the design of spillways and
energy dissipation. The third volume saw a change of emphasis, with seven chapters
ranging over a broader field of river, estuarine and coastal hydraulics including
dispersion, flood routing, ice engineering, inland waterways and port design. Although
the fourth volume dealt predominantly in four chapters with groundwater hydraulics and
development, two further contributions on lake hydraulics and tidal power—both of
substantial topicality—were included.
Although, in the long term, it is likely that each future volume may deal with a more
clearly defined single main theme within hydraulic engineering, for the time being the
editor is glad to have secured—for this and the next volume—the cooperation of a
number of authors well known in their subject area, who have written original
contributions, each with a comprehensive list of references.
There is one further innovation in this fifth volume. Previously the number of chapters
varied between five and seven; in this volume, due to the need for a more thorough
treatment of the subject matter, particularly in two of the contributions, only four chapters
are included, as otherwise Volume 5 would greatly exceed its planned length.
The first chapter, on water power development, deals in its first three sections with
some general matters of hydropower utilisation, but the bulk of the text is oriented
towards all aspects of low-head river developments, including their layout, planning
criteria, magnitude and evaluation of producible power and energy, generating sets and
their operation, electrical equipment, environmental aspects and economic appraisal. A
special section on small size hydropower plants is also included. The text is well
documented by figures and contains both the theoretical background as well as practical
advice drawing on the author’s lifelong involvement in hydropower development.
Although some of the material has been published by the author before, it is dispersed in