With external financial help and advice, Poland has made great strides toward sustainable growth. The country's currency is stable, its international creditworthiness has been restored, and its private sector now accounts for two-thirds of GDP. This review evaluates the overall relevance, efficacy, and efficiency of World Bank assistance to Poland and finds that the Bank's technical advice and intellectual support were pivotal in facilitating the work of Polish reformers. The book explores various stages in the evolution of the Bank's assistance to Poland: systemic and institutional transformation and social improvement; private sector and infrastructure development; implementation and supervision; and, results and recommendations. Boxes, figures, and tables illustrate the Bank's assistance strategy, including information on the distribution of Bank resources among Central Eastern and European countries, total Bank commitments to Poland by fiscal year, and a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of Bank assistance to Poland.

Reservoir design and operation: limnological implications and management opportunities. Self-organization, direct and indirect effects. Main processes in the water column determined by wind and rainfall at Lobo (Broa) Reservoir: implications for phosphorus cycling. The relationship between fish yield and stocking density in reservoirs from tropical and temperate regions. Suspended clay: its role in reservoir productivity. Predictability of seasonal and diel events in tropical and temperate lakes and reservoirs. Heat bidgets, thermal structure and dissolved oxygen in Brazilian reservoirs. Numerical modelling and reservoir management: applications of the DYRESM model. A simplified 2D-vertical plane numerical solution for reservoir flows. Seasonal horizontal gra dients of dissolved oxygen in a temperate austral reservoir. Patterns of colonization in neotropical reservoirs, and prognoses on aging. Impacts of protistan grazing on bacterial dynamics and composition in reservoirs of different trophy. Limnological aspects of Sicilian reservoirs: a comparative, ecosystemic approach. Longitudinal processes in Canyon type reservoirs: the case of Sau (N.E. Spain). Limnological differences between a shallow pre-reservoir and a shallow lake: a case study of the Upper Kis-Balaton reservoir and Lake Balaton. Retention time as a key variable of reservoir limnology. The effect of changing flushing rates on development of late summer Aphanizomenon and Microcystis populations in a shallow lake, Muggelsee, Berlin, Germany. The cascading reservoir continuum concept (CRCC) and its application to the river Tiete-basin, Sao Paulo State, Brazil. Phytoplankton assemblages in reservoirs. Ecological theory applied to reservoir zooplankton. The species richness of reservoir plankton and the effect of reservoirs on plankton dispersal (with particular emphasis on rotifers and cladocerans). Water quality and fishery management in lake Kinneret, Israel. Theoretical basis for reservoir management. Fish effects on reservoir trophic relationships. Biomanipulation and ecological modelling. Reservoir ecosystem functioning: theory and application.

A considerable quantity of data and information were collected on many aspects of the systems of the three reservoirs, including hydrological, biophysical and limnological features, primary production, and fish and fisheries data. This information was condensed and synthesized with the aim of providing a baseline against which the ecological changes that have taken place since impoundment can be described and analysed. Efforts are made to explain changes in fish catch in relation to climatic variations, ecological succession and fishing effort. The review shows that biological data and information are generally available. However, as is also common elsewhere, all three cases suffer from the general tendency to isolate and compartmentalize research into separate disciplines.

Limnology - the study of inland waters - had its genesis in Europe about the turn of the century. The studies of Fore1 on Lake Geneva were of seminal value at this time. It prospered under the early guidance of Thienemann, Naumann and Wesenberg-Lund in Europe and, soon transplanted, of Birge and Juday in North America (to name just a few early spirits). Now, liminology is a respectable scientific discipline taught at many universities, and limnologists are recognized as important contributors to our understanding of how this fragile spaceship functions. All this acknowledged, it must also be acknowledged that limnology is not yet a globally comprehensive science. To be sure, much is known about globally applicable processes, and the structural elements of aquatic ecosystems worldwide, but limnological emphases, interests and concerns remain essentially European and North American in balance. Much is known about lakes and rivers in less than one fifth of the world's land area (northern temperature regions); rather little is known about inland waters elsewhere.