Environmental Science & Technology professional and academic institutions. It has identified needs related to the planning, validation, and implementation of new solutions for water-related problems. These activities will be particularly relevant in the context of the measures for river restoration and offsetting the ecological consequences of hydro- power production that will be required to comply with the 2010 revision of the Federal Law on Water Protection. Several more formal agreements, among authorities with the direct responsibility for water resource management in speciﬁc areas, have also been recently established. For example, a commission with membership from ﬁve Cantons is developing a strategic plan for the River Birs that explicitly includes consideration of surface water quality, groundwater recharge and protection, nature protection, wastewater treatment, agriculture, ﬂood protection, and regional planning (http://www.labirse.ch/index.htm). ’ OUTLOOK Increasing the level of integration in the management of water infrastructure and water resources oﬀers the potential to broaden the portfolio of measures that can be employed to meet societal objectives and to ﬁnd more cost-eﬀective solutions. This can be a pragmatic response to the recognition of the complexity and interrelatedness of the systems being managed and the diﬃculty in identifying the causes of ecological deﬁcits, which are illu- strated by the examples from Switzerland. Increased integration also introduces costs related both to the demands for data- intensive descriptions of systems and to the involvement of greater numbers of actors and a wider range of interests in the decision-making process. The beneﬁts realized through integra- tion should be greater than the costs of increased complexity. These considerations suggest that the optimum extent of inte- gration could be quite broad at higher policy levels and become nar- rower for speciﬁc issues, particularly at the stage of selecting and implementing possible measures. At this level, the beneﬁts will depend on whether knowledge of the system and predictions of its response to alternative measures are suﬃcient to set priorities among sectors and whether the legal and institutional setting would allow a redirection of resources among them. The mainly voluntary arrangements within Switzerland are limited in the extent to which novel, integrated solutions can, in fact, be implemented. This situa- tion is quite diﬀerent in countries where serious water scarcity issues provide a strong driver for nonvoluntary, binding management structures. In any event, integration should not introduce transac- tional costs that exceed the beneﬁts gained. Improving the under- standing of the system and its dynamics may be necessary to quantify and reduce uncertainty. The adaptability of measures can also be important in coping with incorrect predictions and changes in societal values. Assessment of the performance of implemented measures is needed to improve system understanding and predictions as the basis for re-evaluation and modiﬁcation of management plans. This will require the active engagement of scientists and engineers with various actors in the water sector on an ongoing basis. ’ AUTHOR INFORMATION Corresponding Author *Tel: +41 58 765 5001; fax: +41 58 765 5398; e-mail: janet. hering@eawag.ch. 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