COOPERATIVE RESEARCH AT OREGON STATE COLLEGE fN THE BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF WATER POLLUTION 1

Water pollution problems are essentially limnological or oceanographic field problems . Yet, the variability and complex interactions characteristic of real situations make the understanding of that which is observed in the field so difficult that a considerable part of water pollution investigation has had to be carried on in the laboratory. Idealization of the laboratory experiment greatly facilitates the analysis of results, but the idealized experiment rarely approximates reality. Field problems being often too complex for , thorough analysis, and laboratory models being usually too simple, to be truly representative•of natural situations, neither field investigation nor experimentation in the laboratory alone is sufficient for the solution of many water pollution problems . The best information that can be obtained by each approach is needed, and it is highly desirable to bridge the wide gap between ordinary field , observations and pertinent idealized experiments. The more nearly laboratory experiments can be designed to model actual situations under study and still retain the advantageous feature of comparative simplicity, and the more nearly a field study can be made to resemble an idealized experiment through the control of variables, the more efficient will be the investigation and the more reliable the interpretation of the findings. Many current problems having to do with the biological aspects of water pollution can be solved only by utilizing these different approaches in an entirely complementary manner.