Lessons I Learned from Western Movies and TV Shows

In a common scene in a Western, cowboys are sitting around a campfire at the end of a long day on the trail. A stranger approaches in the dark and weapons are produced quickly. Commonly, after some initial skepticism, the stranger is invited into the circle and becomes part of the group. (He may even pull out his guitar to serenade the other cowboys.)

I’ve learned from this the value of getting beyond skepticism to collaborate with professionals outside our normal circle of civil engineering colleagues. For example, for a study of long-term operation of Glen Canyon Dam (National Research Council 1999), I was able to join a geographer, an anthropologist, a zoologist, a sociologist, a limnologist, and a biologist “around the campfire” to consider options and impacts beyond what civil engineers would have seen, leading to a better operation strategy.

In many Westerns, a group of cowboys herds cattle from a Texas ranch to a market, moving across the U.S. plains. Such a “cattle drive” takes days or weeks, so the group is accompanied by a cook and a mobile kitchen—a chuck wagon. A cowboy who complains about the food from the chuck wagon often is forced to trade places with the cook, sometimes after harsh words and a fist fight. The newly appointed cook quickly comes to appreciate the unseen difficulties of the task, learning the theory of good cooking on the trail differs from the realities of practice. The lesson I learned from such scenes is this: I shouldn’t criticize solutions to a WRPM problem unless I fully appreciate the problem, unless I am prepared to implement my solution in the real world, and unless I am willing to take the criticism aimed at “the cook.”

For example, it’s tempting for me to review California’s newly published Central Valley Flood Protection Plan (California Department of Water Resources 2017) and imagine how I could use a genetic algorithm (Nicklow et al. 2010) with multicriteria decision making (Hajkowicz and Collins 2007) to improve the plan. However, unless that approach will represent the critical hydrologic and hydraulic, infrastructure, ecologic, and (especially) the complex human processes that affect flood management decisions in California, the elegant “meal” I imagine preparing if I were in charge of the chuck wagon may fail in practice to satisfy those who consume the results. Details matter; details are difficult to understand without firsthand exposure and experience; and details are often difficult to represent properly with an analytical tool.

A common plot element in Westerns includes a grueling chase through a dry desert, with one cowboy evading another. Predictably, one of the cowboys fails to pay attention to his need for water to drink, then runs short, worsening his situation.

Those Western stories remind me to pay attention to water, particularly the principles of hydraulics, water chemistry, aquatic biology, and elements of water science, as I seek solutions to WRPM problems. Sure, it’s convenient for me to use a simplified linear routing model so I can use a linear programming formulation to answer reservoir operation questions. But that forgets the water, because important flow conditions are not always represented well with a simplified model. [See Table 9-3 in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering Manual 1110-2-1417 (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 1994) for guidance on that]. A WRPM plan I identify with sophisticated WRSE methods, built on a foundation of an oversimplified representation of the watershed, channels, ecosystem, or water management features is unlikely to be optimal in reality, and it may be infeasible.

In many Westerns, it’s easy for the viewer to distinguish between the good guys (they wear white hats) and the bad guys (black hats). But in some Westerns, as with some WRSE problems, it is not easy to identify that which is good. For example, in the Western movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the good guys are not wearing white hats. That creates a dilemma for the character played by Jimmy Stewart. Only when he realizes how to measure goodness is his path forward—although difficult—clear to him. This movie taught me to take care how I measure what’s good as I evaluate alternative solutions, since appropriate evaluation often is the most difficult task in WRPM.

The Flood Control Act of 1936 (U.S. Congress 1936) permitted the federal government to participate in projects “if the benefits to whomsoever they may accrue are in excess of the estimated costs.” Accordingly, I and others [such as Draper et al. (2003)] developed WRSE models with objective functions that measure the net economic benefit of alternative solutions, and we used those models to find “the good guys.” The Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2007 (U.S. Congress 2007) led us to broader goals in WRPM, including protecting and restoring functions of ecosystems, mitigating unavoidable damage, encouraging sustainable economic development, avoiding unwise use of floodplains, reducing public safety risk, seeking solutions that fairly treat and meaningfully involve all people, and taking a watershed approach. Now, to be successful, I must do as Jimmy Stewart did: gain an understanding of which objectives are important, find ways to measure contributions of alternative solutions to those objectives, and analyze trade-offs among the objectives to find a compromise solution.

We systems engineers are deliberators. We like to deliberate alternative solutions and alternative paths to developing alternative solutions. But, in reality, progress will not wait on us. I learned from the 1952 movie High Noon I must stop deliberating at some point, make a difficult choice with incomplete data, offer an opinion, and finish what I start. In High Noon, the marshal (Gary Cooper) must make a difficult choice between alternatives: leaving town with his fiancé (Grace Kelly) or staying to protect the citizens from bad guys. (In this case, the bad guys are recognized easily.) Cooper’s character agonizes, debates, deliberates, and finally makes a decision. We viewers are left to decide if he made the optimal choice, but he finished, and he did so in time to make a difference. Decisions we make about WRPM are similar. We often have imperfect data, unclear objectives, and model results about which we are uncertain. I learned from High Noon I must act with these to meet a real schedule that demands action. If my action improves the condition and does so in a timely manner, I may be successful enough (Ford 2006).

A bonus lesson I learned from Westerns is to keep a good sense of humor about my work in WRPM. Certainly, our work as civil engineers is important, and it demands serious attention, somber thought, and careful analysis, design, and operation. But, even in the darkest episodes of the TV series Gunsmoke, Chester Goode, Marshal Dillon’s friend, kept a good sense of humor and added levity. I’ve learned friendship and a good sense of humor will contribute much to our success solving WRSE problems.

This editorial is adapted from my acceptance speech for the 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers Julian Hinds Award; I am flattered by that honor bestowed by my ASCE colleagues. I appreciate encouragement from EWRI colleagues as I prepared the Hinds presentation and this editorial, reminders from my brother Larry about Westerns we enjoy, and help from Donna Lee with the text.