Full Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education, Issue ...

110Bourgetwith over 600 people responding. In addition to theshort number questions, many of the respondentstook the time to answer the separate discussionquestions that were included in the survey, thusyielding substantial results. At the outset of thesurvey, the respondents were asked whether ornot they would be representing their own personalviews or those of their respective organizationsthrough the course of the survey; 91 percent ofthose responding stated that they were voicingtheir own personal views.Importance of IWRMThe respondents were asked, on a scale of 1(low) to 5 (high) how important the integrationof multi-disciplinary education and application inwater resources management was to accomplishingtheir organization’s mission. Nearly everyoneresponded to this question, with 85 percent ofthem feeling that it was very important. Less than5 percent viewed it as unimportant to their mission,while 10 percent gave it the mid-rating of 3.IWRM ResponsibilitiesFor the next question, those surveyed wereasked to define their area of responsibility on thesame scale of 1 to 5 from an assigned list of 20specialty areas. The purpose of this question wasto determine what capacity of IWRM they felt theybest represent. The ranges for this question werenot substantial, with the rather nebulous entry ofwater resources management receiving the highestresponse average of 4.31. In a field of 20 subspecialtyareas associated with IWRM no oneparticular area of responsibility stood out from thisparticular field of respondents 3 . At the same time,no field was discounted, suggesting how rich andvaried the field is in practice.Training Disciplines of ImportanceIt was very important to glean from therespondents which educational areas should beprimarily targeted for the purposes of deriving anIWRM curriculum. For this question, 14 separatedisciplines 4 were provided for the respondents tochoose from. They were asked to identify which ofthese areas of training would help their organizationaccomplish their mission. The leading response waswatershed hydrology and modeling with 86 percentof the survey respondents. The specialty area ofgeographic information systems (geography) camein second at 75 percent (Figure 1).1009080706050403020100Watershed Hydrol/ModelingGIS/GeographyWater ChemistryCivil EngineeringBiology/Life SciencesLaw/RegulatoryGeologyPublic PolicyStatisticsSoils/AgronomyEconomicsMeteorologyMicrobiologyForest/Rangeland MgmtFigure 1. Breakdown of disciplinary education/training areas of interest.UCOWRJOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY WATER RESEARCH & EDUCATION