During this past year (from June 1979 to June 1980) several projects were supported at IIASA through the U.S. National Academy of Sciences under a program for International Cooperation in Systems Analysis Research. One of these projects was entitled "Real-time Water Quality Management". It was a collaborative project and formed part of the Research Task "Environmental Quality Control and Management" of IIASA's Resources and Environment Area. The principal objective of the project was to prepare a policy-oriented report that fairly sets out the practical prospects for real-time forecasting and control in water quality management. 

In these proceedings all the contributions made to the project and the papers presented at a Task Force Meeting at IIASA (March 12-14th, 1980) are collected together. The proceedings therefore represent some of the technical support material for the policy-oriented report, a draft of which is currently under review by the Task Force members. 

Previous papers on this subject (IIASA Working Papers WP-79-1 and WP-79-125) are reproduced here with minor revisions. An extended summary of the proceedings is given in the "Introduction" prepared by the editor.