In 1973, AN IFAC workshop was held on this theme in Zakopane, Poland. Since then the environmental problems in many parts of the world have become more and more important and the interest in this theme has grown considerably. Thus a symposium on this subject was proposed by Japanese NMO, sponsored by IFAC Technical Committees on Systems Engineering and on Application, and was held on August 1 5, 1977, in Kyoto, Japan.
The purpose of the symposium was to exchange information and to discuss experiences obtained in various places of the world and to help improve the technique to deal with environmental control problems. Proposed topics covered a wide variety of fields such as measuring, modelling, controlling, simulating to designing, planning, assessing the environmental systems, namely from the techniques of measurement to the regional planning.
The symposium was a success in that 130 papers were submitted for presentation and more than 250 scientists and engineers participated from 22 countries. Actually, 120 accepted papers were presented in 3 parallel sessions in four days from 1st to 4th. Four papers were invited, one at the opening sessions and three in the plenary sessions. Round table discussions were invited and one on traffic control system was proposed and held. There was an exhibition held where instruments and apparatus related to environmental techniques were displayed at a hall across from the symposium site. Technical visits were made on the 5th of August to sewage treatment plant and solid waste plant of Kyoto city. A number of excursions were offered to the participants and the accompanying persons.
A free reception was held on the first day near the symposium site and a paid buffet party on the 3rd day at a hotel in the city. All were well attended.
In the following, some statistics of the symposium are listed together with the names of the sessions and the paper titles.