Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
there, the Corps, the State of California, and the Bureau of Reclamation, about not
operating the reservoirs properly. But there really wasn't much they could do about it.
They probably did about as good as could have been done under the circumstances.
they had to review all of their operating procedures and get all the people
But after it,
argue about what could they do or could have done to make it less damaging
together and
I don't know that too much came about in terms of changes. Just one of
than it was.
you can't handle.
those things
Q ..
Well, isn't part of the problem about historical information, historical data. But you've
only been collecting for what, approximately a hundred years or so?
A ..
Well, if you've got a hundred years, you're really in gooa shape
Q ..
Yes, in most cases in most areas in this country, you probably don't have anywhere near
that. So you're operating with a very small database. It's like your 100-year floods and
500-year floods.
A ..
Well, you see that would have been one of the problems in the statistical analysis of trying
to determine what the 100-year flood is and so forth, because you don't have enough data.
The sample that you have is not likely to represent what an infinite length of record would
represent.
Of course, even if you had an infinite, you'd still have trouble predicting what is going to
happen in the next hundred years. Because what you get for the next hundred years, you
don't know which part of that infinite record you're going to get in the next hundred
years. So even if you did have a perfect infinite record to go by, why you still wouldn't
be able to tell people what is going to happen in the next hundred years.
Q ..
You may get your hundred year flood tomorrow. You may get nothing too.
A ..
You may get two to three years in a row or twice in the same year even, maybe. Then get
nothing for a long time. Now, you get three or four temperatures over a hundred degrees
in the one day after another and then not have a hundred degrees for several years.
Q ..
That's the wonderful thing about nature, isn't it? It's totally unpredictable.
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