Hydroinformatics: A Copernican revolution in hydraulics

Abstract

Through the rapidly ongoing process of electronic encapsulation of information and knowledge, a new kind of space opens up in hydraulics between the places and ways in which information and knowledge are produced, through research, and the places and ways in which these are applied, through engineering and management practice. It is this space that is now being occupied by hydroinformatics. The special problems of presenting hydroinformatics arc introduced in relation to the types of electronic knowledge encapsulators that are currently being brought together and integrated in real-time-control, alarm-handling, computer-aided design, computer- aided management and other systems. The new challenges that hydroinformatics presents are outlined and related to the contributions to this special edition of the Journal of Hydraulics Research.The distinction between information and knowledge and the most immediate consequences of this distinction are set out in an appendix to this introductory paper.