WMOD00398

• Project Name: Project Skywater
• Title: Precipitation Management and the Environment - An Overview of the Skywater IX Conference
• Date: 9/1/1977
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

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INTRODUCTION

The Sky water IX Conference on Precipitation Management and the Environment was held at
Vail, Colo., during the second week of November 1976. The conference was undertaken by the
Bureau of Reclamation to assess the present status of knowledge on possible environmental
effects from widespread or prolonged application of the techniques of precipitation management
that Project Skywater is developing, and to provide information for planning. The conference
developed from the recent publication of reports marking the completion of three major
undertakings. These were the Medicine Bow [7] 1 and San Juan [13] Ecology Projects, each a
multiyear field investigation of the ecological effects of increased snowpack and seeding agents;
and the draft programmatic environmental statement for the Bureau's research program, Project
Skywater [1] . The completion of these reports presented an ideal time to review what had been
accomplished and to see what remained to be done.
Awareness of the need for a long-range look at the possible consequences of managing the
weather has accumulated gradually from concerns aroused by early cloud seeding experiments.
This led to the convocation by the National Science Foundation of a Special Commission on
Weather Modification. A report [8] by this commission in 1966 noted that the scientific
prospects for effective weather modification were such that the prospect for wide ranging
biological and social consequences should be examined in a timely manner. Respecting biological
consequences, it reported:
"Great uncertainty has been encountered regarding the biological consequences of weather
and climate modification. Augmentation of rainfall over cultivated areas could partially
alleviate the increasing problem of food production. However, there is an accompanying
possibility that instabilities might result in the balances of biological communities. Such
imbalances can be expected in the diseases and pests of man's domesticated plants and
animals. In small areas of natural communities it is possible that some wild species may be
severely stressed. The timing of the atmospheric intervention relative to the reproductive
cycle of the various species in the community may be of more importance than the
magnitude of the intervention. Both field and simulation studies of these biological
relationships are therefore needed before, during, and after sustained operational programs.
These studies should help avoid undesirable, unanticipated, and irreversible ecological
changes. "
Respecting social consequences, the report noted that weather modification "may provoke
intricate social changes" and called attention to areas where such changes might occur. These
areas varied from such very general topics as "the whole fabric of society" and "organization of
livelihood" to such specifics as "the compensation of those who might be directly disbenefited
by particular weather alterations that benefited others." The report suggested that these matters
might be looked at from either of two viewpoints: (1) the impacts of a particular modification of
the weather; or (2) the particular needs of society that might be served by tailoring weather
modification to these needs. It recommended that steps be taken to study the social
consequences of weather modification. Since publication of the commission's report, various
societal implications have been the subject of contributions to the literature [2, 6], and the
National Science Foundation has sponsored a study group on societal consequences.

1 Numbers in brackets refer to items in the bibliography.