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B O O K R E V I E W S

Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Public Water Supply Engineers' Conference Unconventional Treatment

The Twenty-Four th Pubhc Water Supply Engineers' Confer- ence Unconventional Treatment was held 27-29 April 1982 at the University of Illinois and was sponsored by the University of Illinois, Ameracan Water Works Association, Illinois Envxronmental Protection Agency, and Ilhnols Section of the Ameracan Water Works Association The proceedings pubhshed by the Umversxty of Illinois include the presentations of internationally known experts in water t reatment The papers are generally not specific recent research work, but rather reviews and summaries of poten- tial and current unconventional t reatment Since such philosophy and state-of-the-art papers are rare m refereed journals, these proceedings fall a void m the practicing engineer's hbrary, one usually has to walt unti l a t ex tbook is pubhshed to find such reformation

Several authors d~scuss what constitutes unconventional t reatment and what are the constraints on Its use Because governmental regulatory agencies normally must approve a t reatment method, it is valuable to understand how the regulator's design criteria is developed and applied, what his concerns axe for pubhc safety and treatment economics, and what the regulator looks for m approving unconventional technology The engineer's legal habthty generally for any project and specifically for unconventional projects are also i l luminated, and potential misconceptions of hablhty insurance coverage clarified

Other authors review best current design practice and unconventional alternatives for rapid nux and flocculatlon, direct fi l tration, deep bed fdtratxon, disinfection and general t reatment plant capacity upgrading Here the d~s- t lnctlon between conventional design and unconventional design may be cloudy because some unconventional designs of 20 or 10 years ago have proven themselves, been accepted, and now become conventional design Hence, design maprovements for greater efficiency, economy, and capacity may have been known for several years but not yet universally apphed Other designs such as the varaous d~smfectlon methods discussed m one paper are clearly alternatives to present practice

Although most of the papers review, summaraze, and crat~que conventional and unconventional design practice, case studies and example data are appropraately used to illustrate points

Dr R B Robmson Department of Ctvd EngTneermg University of Tennessee, USA

Effect of Waste Disposal on Groundwater and Surface Water Edlted by R Perry Proceedings of the IAHS First Scientific General Assembly, Exeter, 1982 IAHS Pubhcatlon No 139

One of the problems of pubhshmg the proceedings of a general scientific assembly is that wath a wxde range of papers it ~s often difficult to provlde a set of coherent themes In the case of the IAHS scientific assembly tlus has been aclueved by pubhshmg six proceedings each covering a different aspect of the hydrological sciences In the proceedings on the effects of waste disposal on groundwater and surface water the papers broadly divide into those concerned with surface water quality, those

concerned with groundwater quahty and those relating to the transport of pollutants to groundwater through the unsaturated zone The authors pnman ly consader chemical pollut ion although the paper by Schouter and De Bruin ~s concerned with thermal effects m surface water

A number of modelhng papers are included Several papers descnbe the problems of urban runoff and Prater and Jolankl develop s~mple relationships between nutnents and runoff under different land-use conditions Integrated raver basin modelhng is undertaken by Whitehead and W~lhams to assess the sources and distribution of nitrates taking into account processes such as demtnf icat lon Theoretical aspects of pollut ion transport models for aquifers are considered by Kovacs

Mining and metal pol lut ion problems are reported by several authors and the problems of sediment from mmmg operations are examined using a modelling approach by Herold The interactions between sediments containing h~,h levels of pollutants and overlying water seem to create particular problems and Steel and Coughhn describe a study in Colorado to assess sedunent-water quality problems

The largest single group of papers is concerned with the problems of pollutant transport m groundwater including the movement of leachate from landfill sites Watson and Jones consider the numerical modelhng of solute transport m the unsaturated zone and Hocks and Agelmk discuss practical aspects of t ip management Finally some very useful general papers are presented by Simpson on the EEC pollut ion control legislation and by Brown et al on water quahty in Great Bratam

The proceedings reflect the wide range of pollution problems being investigated by water authont les , govern- ment research agencies, pravate companies and univers i t ies The papers on modeUmg and model apphcatlons are par- tlcularly interesting since they descnbe methods of inter- preting data and assessing the ~mpact of man's actwltles on the aquatic envtronment The proceedings represent invalu- able reading for scientists washing to assess the current state-of-the-art m pollut ion research and management It ts also a useful text for managers wishing to assess whether scientists really can provide improved understand- mg of processes m the aquatic environment and whether this knowledge can be utfllsed to enhance existing manage- ment techmques

Dr Paul Whztehead lnstttute of Hydrology lCalhngford, UK

N E W B O O K

Proceedmgs of the International Conference on Constitutive Laws for Engineering Materials Edtted by C S Desat and R H Gallagher Sponsored by the College of Engineering, Department of Cwd Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Unlvemty of Arizona, USA About 100 papers are pnnted m these proceedings including 28 summaries of invited/theme papers

The major objective of the conference was to provide a bndge between theoreUcal developments and implementa- t ion m order to enhance the potentml for apphcat~ons of various constitutive laws to the solution of engmeenng problems

Adv IVater Resources, 1984, Volume 7, June 103