To approach an intelligent system in coping with an aspect of complexity of water management

Reviewer: James Roger Geissman

This interesting and insightful paper is extremely hard to read. It discusses what makes real world systems complex and how this is reflected in the complexity of automation systems devised for their control. Unfortunately, the paper is so riddled with ambiguous expression and grammatical error that this reviewer is not entirely sure what he read. Consider the paper's title: do we approach the system warily with a sharp stick__?__ Language problems are understandable given a Chinese author living in Holland, writing in English and trying to extend the conceptual envelope; but one wants to suggest that ACM (the publishers) should assign copy editors to collections of conference papers, even at the cost of publication delay and price increase. The author addresses two important issues: (1) how to distinguish the computer system complexity that results from a complex design from the complexity that simply reflects the underlying real-world process being modeled, and (2) how to control the real-world complexity and derive a manageable system model. The author presents a convincing analysis of the concepts of application and system complexity, and how they impact the design of a water management control system. However, I am reluctant, given the difficulties mentioned, to repeat the argument here, since I may have misunderstood the author's intentions. This is left as an exercise for the CR reader. In summary, an intelligent discussion of an important topic, but one that presents problems for the reader.