Review of Water Resources Engineering—Handbook of Essential Methods and Design by Anand Prakash: 2004, ASCE, Reston, Va., 348 pp., ISBN: 0-7844-0674-X, Price: $99.

This is a well organized handbook of essential methods and design of water resources projects. The methods and equations included in the book focus on how to solve practical engineering problems with a minimum of literature searches. The book should not be used as a text book for students to learn the basic theories in water resources engineering. It is intended for practicing engineers who are already equipped with the knowledge and understanding of the basics in hydrology and hydraulics.

This book consists of seven chapters. Chapter 1 is an introduction to water resources engineering and how to plan and document water resources engineering studies. Chapter 2 provides a summary of basic hydrologic analyses, i.e., estimation of peak flow, determination of runoff hydrograph, hydrologic consideration of reservoir operation, and some of the commonly used hydrologic models. Chapter 3 provides a summary of hydraulic analyses of open channel flows, hydraulics of weir and spillways, and pipe flows. Chapter 4 provides a brief summary of groundwater theories and how to apply them to one-dimensional steady-state flows, steady-state radial flows, unsteady flows, and contaminant transport through fractured rocks. Chapter 5 provides step-by-step methods for hydraulic design of flood control channels, erosion protection, dams, reservoirs, stilling basins and energy dissipation devices. Chapter 6 provides an introduction to benefit-cost analysis and evaluation of alternatives of water resources projects. Chapter 7 describes some environmental issues such as the environmental impact statement, environmental monitoring and evaluation, and remedial investigation and feasibility studies.

The book accomplished its goal of providing “essential methods and design” of water resources projects. The examples used by the author are based on his years of practical engineering experiences and are easy to follow. The book is a good reference book for water resources engineers. Sediment has been identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the number one non-point source pollutant in the United States. The weakness of the book is the lack of sufficient information on erosion and sediment transport for engineers to use for their water resources projects. The limited information on erosion and sedimentation in the book are not the state-of-the-art type of technology. Engineers should refer to more recent text books such as those by Julien (1998) and Yang (1996) when erosion and sedimentation are subjects of concern in their projects.