1 Introduction

Water is one of our most precious resources. In moist, temperate regions, wateris the fundamental mechanism in chemical flux and cycling. In arid regions,access to water lies at the heart of much conflict. Every living organism onthis planet requires water in some form. Water, therefore, regulates popula-tion growth, influences world health and living conditions, and determinesbiodiversity (Newson 1992).

For thousands of years people have tried to control the flow and quality ofwater. McDonald and Kay (1988) document water disputes of 4,500 years agoin the Mesopotamian cities of Lagash and Umma. Indeed, Phelps (2007) saysthat throughout history, allocation of water has been the “number one cause ofconflict, whether between sovereign nations or individuals.” Whether or notone agrees with Phelps, certainly engineering works related to military andurban development, drainage works, irrigation projects, and water diversionscan all be documented over thousands of years. Bonnin (1988) notes that theyear 1989 was the 2,000th anniversary of a Roman decree (senatus-consultus)to the effect that:

Ne quis aquam oletato dolo malo ubi publice saliet si quis oletarit sestertiorumX mila multa esto.

That is,

It is forbidden to pollute the public water supply: any deliberate offender shallbe punished by a fine of 10,000 sesterces.

Water provided resources and a means of transportation for development inNorth America—and placed limits on that development in some areas. Eventoday the presence or absence of water is critical in determining the uses towhich land can be put.

Yet despite this long experience in water use and water management,humans have failed to manage water well. Through the nineteenth century andmuch of the twentieth century, economic development in many countries wasrapid, and often at the expense of sound water management. Frequently, opti-mism about the applications of technology—whether dam-building, wastew-ater treatment, or irrigation measures—vastly exceeded concerns or eveninterest in their environmental shortcomings. Pollution was viewed as theinevitable consequence of development, the price that must be paid if eco-nomic progress was to be achieved.

1

COPYRIG

HTED M

ATERIAL

2 INTRODUCTION

Rachel Carson’s publication of Silent Spring in 1962 was a turning pointin public views about the environment in general and about water in par-ticular. The book drew attention to the rapid deterioration of water qualityand the role of industrial polluters in that decline. Over the next decade,governments around the world strove first to understand, and then to limit,misuse of water, establishing stronger environmental-protection legislation,more efficient administrative structures, and better oversight of public andprivate water users.

In March 1977, the United Nations (UN) sponsored a conference on waterat Mar del Plata, Argentina. The conference is viewed by many researchers(e.g., Lee 1992; Koudstaal et al. 1992; Biswas 1992, 2004) as a landmarkevent in water management. The conference resulted in an “action plan,”including recommendations targeted at meeting the goal of safe drinking waterand sanitation for all human settlements by 1990. The Mar del Plata confer-ence made specific reference to the problem that water resources would beincreasingly under siege as the need for economic development came in con-flict with the desire for protection of the environment. The Mar del Plata rec-ommendations for water management policy can be summarized as follows:

1. Each country should formulate and keep under review a generalstatement of policy relating to the use, management, and conservationof water as a framework for planning and implementation. Nationaldevelopment plans and policies should specify the main objectives ofwater-use policy, which in turn should be translated into guidelines,strategies, and programs.

2. Institutional arrangements adopted by each country should ensure thatthe development and management of water resources take place withinthe context of national planning, and that there be real coordinationamong all bodies responsible for the investigation, development, andmanagement of water resources.

3. Each country should examine and keep under review existing legisla-tive and administrative structures concerning water management and,where appropriate, should enact comprehensive legislation for a coor-dinated approach to water planning. It may be desirable that provisionsconcerning water resources management, conservation, and protectionagainst pollution be combined in a unitary legal instrument. Legislationshould define the rules of public ownership of water and of large waterengineering works, as well as the provisions governing land ownershipproblems and any litigation that may result from them. This legislationshould be flexible enough to accommodate future changes in prioritiesand perspectives.

4. Countries should make necessary efforts to adopt measures forobtaining effective participation in the planning and decision-makingprocess involving users and public authorities. This participation can

INTRODUCTION 3

constructively influence choices between alternative plans and policies.If necessary, legislation should provide for such participation as anintegral part of the planning, programming, implementation, andevaluation process.

This “action plan” emphasizes a strong, centralized, and national com-mitment to water management. Yet even decades later, the problems it wasintended to solve remain significant. Lee (1992) lists the following difficultiesas continuing to exist 15 years after Mar del Plata:

1. The dominance of unregulated water uses

2. Inadequate and ineffective water resources management

3. A high degree of inefficiency in many water-related public utilities

4. A failure to retain trained staff of all types

5. Overcentralization and bureaucratization of decision-making authority

6. Inappropriate and inadequate water legislation

The significance of Mar del Plata probably lies in the fact that it recognized,formally and globally, that existing water management policy was failing toreach its goals. The disappointing progress in the years since the conferencehas encouraged many authors to reexamine the Mar del Plata action planand the reasons for continued inaction. Many of these papers were writtenbetween 1990 and 1992, possibly in preparation for the UN Conference onEnvironment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.

The Rio meeting provided an important forum for the discussion of globalenvironmental issues and reinforced the need for continued action, includingthe protection of biological diversity. At the meeting, 156 nations signed theConvention on Biological Diversity, which aims to protect biodiversity andrestore damaged ecosystems. Many countries have begun to develop formalpolicy and programmatic responses to the Convention, and a Global Envi-ronment Facility was established by the UN and the World Bank to provideloans for projects that have environmental benefits in preserving biodiversityand maintaining natural habitats, which reduce the emission of greenhousegases, stop pollution of international waters, and protect the ozone layer.

These actions clearly speak to the need for management of systems, not sys-tem components. The level of consensus on this notion is now almost unprece-dented. Lee (1992) argued that overcentralization of water management, likeovercentralization of social and economic systems, has failed and must bereplaced with locally responsive systems at the watershed level. Koudstaalet al. (1992) reaffirm this idea, noting that there is no single, clear water man-agement “problem,” so it is difficult to focus public attention on water andto develop a single centralized approach to water management. Increasingly,authors are calling for an emphasis on “achieving rational, efficient use of

4 INTRODUCTION

water locally” (Lee 1992), including water management institutions that are“appropriate to local conditions and not centrally, inflexibly, imposed.”

This perspective, widely endorsed, clearly supports the notion of watermanagement on a watershed, not state or national, basis. The Oxford EnglishDictionary defines watershed as “a narrow elevated tract of land separatingtwo drainage basins,” or “the thin line dividing the waters flowing into twodifferent rivers.” A watershed, therefore, is the boundary of a drainage basin.In the two decades since Mar del Plata, however, the term watershed has cometo mean also the drainage basin itself, or “catchment” of the river system. Thisbook employs the common usage of watershed as a drainage basin: an areaof land within which all waters flow to a single river system.

As early as 1980, authors such as Schramm were observing that a watershedis an integrated system, “holistic in nature . . . [with the] whole . . . greaterthan the sum of its parts” (Schramm 1980). Today, as we contemplate a clearglobal consensus that human activities are inexorably changing our climate,we face much greater uncertainty and new and more complex water-planningchallenges. In particular, we can no longer rely on tools built around outdatedassumptions about weather and flows. We need new tools, and new planningstrategies, that will let us come to grips with an increasingly uncertain futurefor this precious resource.

Notwithstanding these challenges, the watershed continues to be viewedas the most appropriate unit for water management (cf. Newson 1992; Lee

water supply

water demand

Supply-oriented

measures

Demand-oriented

measures

triggerfor action

trigger foraction

Integrated Watershed Management

Principles and Practice

Watershedwater

resources

Waterusers

development

Watershed ecosystem

Figure 1.1 Forces affecting integrated watershed management (after Koudstaalet al. 1992)

CURRENT ISSUES IN WATER MANAGEMENT 5

1992; Koudstaal et al. 1992; Goodman and Edwards 1992; Nickum and Easter1990; King et al. 2003; Orr et al. 2007). Figure 1.1 illustrates the interplayof forces affecting integrated watershed management.

This book responds to the call for water management on a watershed basis,providing a range of techniques and approaches that can be used to inves-tigate the biophysical, social, and economic forces affecting water and itsuse. This chapter examines some of the fundamental issues currently fac-ing water resources and proposes a general framework for integrated watermanagement.

1.1 CURRENT ISSUES IN WATER MANAGEMENT

In the wide debate leading up to the Rio meeting, a number of authors ana-lyzed the forces affecting water management. There is remarkable consensusamong these authors—who come from countries around the world—aboutthe current issues confronted by water managers (Viessmann 1990; Goodmanand Edwards 1992; Nickum and Easter 1990):

Water Availability, Requirements, and Use

• Protection of aquatic and wetland habitat• Management of extreme events (droughts, floods, etc.)• Excessive extractions from surface and ground waters• Global climate change• Safe drinking water supply• Waterborne commerce

Water Quality

• Coastal and ocean water quality• Lake and reservoir protection and restoration• Water quality protection, including effective enforcement of legislation• Management of point- and nonpoint-source pollution• Impacts on land/water/air relationships• Health risks

Water Management and Institutions

• Coordination and consistency• Capturing a regional perspective• The respective roles of federal and state/provincial agencies• The respective roles of projects and programs

6 INTRODUCTION

• The economic development philosophy that should guide planning• Financing and cost sharing• Information and education• Appropriate levels of regulation and deregulation• Water rights and permits• Infrastructure• Population growth• Water resources planning, including

• Consideration of the watershed as an integrated system• Planning as a foundation for, not a reaction to, decision making• Establishment of dynamic planning processes incorporating periodic

review and redirection• Sustainability of projects beyond construction and early operation• A more interactive interface between planners and the public• Identification of sources of conflict as an integral part of planning• Fairness, equity, and reciprocity between affected parties

If so much consensus exists, why has progress since Mar del Plata been soslow? Biswas (2004) observes that although a number of major internationalmeetings on water issues have been held in the last decade, none were assuccessful as Mar del Plata. He attributes this to several factors, includingoverambitious and increasingly unfocused agendas, inappropriate audience(for example, an audience that included only water experts, not the decisionmakers who would ultimately approve plans and budgets), and the sheer sizeof the events. In some cases, the meetings were so large, and the numberof sessions so great (more than 350 sessions at the 2003 Third World WaterForum in Japan, with no attempt at integration) that consensus could on anyissue was virtually impossible.

There is also clear evidence that integrated watershed management issignificantly more complex and uncertain than it was 30 years ago, duringthe Mar del Plata discussions. Whereas the early years of water managementwere characterized by a relatively straightforward emphasis on point sources,visible pollution, and government stewardship, current practice must explorea much wider range of sources, impacts, and management approaches.Biswas (2004) reinforces this notion, observing that we are moving into anew kind of globalized economy, a new kind of society, characterized bymassive population growth and urbanization, in which we must communicatein new ways about increasingly complex and uncertain challenges. He warns(italics his) that:

Whether we like it or not, the world of water management is likely to change moreduring the next 20 years compared to the past 2000 years . The past experiences

CURRENT ISSUES IN WATER MANAGEMENT 7

will often provide no guidance during this period of explosive change andincreasing complexities. The stakes are high, but equally it gives us new oppor-tunities to improve water management practices very significantly like neverbefore in human history. I believe that with some luck, we can manage thesechanges. The opportunities are clearly there, and we must rise to meet thesechallenges successfully and in a timely manner.

Today, we must acknowledge that, despite the many successes of the last30 years, several additional issues, all important, remain unresolved. Theyinclude:

1. Growing tension between economic development and environmentalquality, as reflected in the “commodification” of water as a salablegood, and our failure to come to grips with critical public-private waterownership and allocation conflicts.

2. The importance of building social and institutional capacity for soundwater management, including drought planning and management.

3. The changing role of government, and the growing role of nongovern-mental partners in the collection, analysis, and stewardship of watermanagement information.

Van der Zaag (2005) correctly observes that integrated watershed manage-ment is not a simple, dogmatic concept but is rather “elusive and fuzzy,” andcontinually evolving. That is as it should be: as we continually invent, test, andrevise our water management strategies, we are laying a foundation of watermanagement experience upon which future societies can build. Indeed, oneof the most remarkable trends in water management literature is not so much“big thinking” papers, but rather the rapid proliferation of studies on smallcatchments, testing various strategies in the context of a particular culture,climate, and geography. There are literally hundreds of such studies, fromevery region of the United States and Canada, and from dozens of coun-tries around the world. A few examples will illustrate this point. Garandeand Dagg (2005) reflect on how bottom-up public participation techniqueshave been effective in a small low-income area in Chile. Takahasi and Uitto(2004) examine changing attitudes toward dams in Japanese rivers, and howthose attitudes have influenced river management policy and practice. Sokileand Koppen (2004) describe the importance of informal dispute resolutionmechanisms in Tanzanian water management. Dawei and Jingsheng (2001)reexamine China’s water management policies in light of several specificprojects, including the Three Gorges Dam, concluding that integrated water-shed management is feasible and appropriate in that country, even in thelargest of its projects.

The importance of these and other case studies lies in the insight theyprovide into the social and economic dynamics of a given river basin, and

8 INTRODUCTION

how those elements influence and are themselves influenced by the biophysi-cal environment. For this reason, authors such as Orr et al. (2007) argue thateffective stakeholder involvement, characterized by collaborative and interdis-ciplinary learning (discussed in Chapter 4), is in fact essential for managingwatersheds, with their complex physical, chemical, biological, and socialinterrelationships, in a truly integrative fashion. They observe that parallelmanagement strategies, for example one plan for fisheries, another for waterabstraction, a third for biodiversity protection, and so on, fail to integrate theknowledge base necessary for effective management of any one resource, andmay be an obstacle to effective codelivery of jointly agreed-upon solutions.

1.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE WATERSHEDMANAGEMENT

Generally speaking, water management can be considered effective when it:

1. Allows an adequate supply of water that is sustainable over many years

2. Maintains water quality at levels that meet government standards andother societal water quality objectives, and protect key ecologicalfunctions

3. Allows sustainable economic development over the short and long term

We may, in fact, have reached a point—perhaps signaled by recent envi-ronmental disasters like Love Canal and the Cuyahoga River and by watersupply crises in many communities—at which it is clear that future water usemust be sustainable or development in some regions will halt. Sustainabilityimplies closer cooperation between water users than has typically been experi-enced in the past. It also implies consideration of the needs of the community,not just the individual—a difficult proposition for many water users.

Goodman and Edwards (1992) state that the in this context word plan canmean any one of the following:

• A single-purpose, single-unit plan to serve a specific need, such as ademand for water or abatement of a water-related problem

• A multipurpose and multiproject plan• A regional plan for water resources development, preservation, or enhance-

ment, staged over a period of time with one or more planning horizons• A national plan for water resources development, preservation, or

enhancement

Planning may proceed in many ways. Bishop (1970) notes that clear goalsmay be set or a process may simply proceed without goals. One agency maylead and control the process, perhaps even forbidding participation by other

CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE WATERSHED MANAGEMENT 9

groups or agencies. Or the process may be clearly a multiparty and multi-perspective one, with community consensus established at every step. Someplanning processes consist of a rigid schedule of meetings, formally chairedand run; others employ a flexible workshop or “kitchen table” approach inwhich discussion is open and unstructured. There are advantages and disad-vantages to each method, but the point that must be stressed is that the choiceof a planning process is often highly context-dependent; that is, its successwill depend very much on the characteristics of the planning area, the watermanagement issues in the area, and the interests and needs of the communityof water users. It is increasingly clear, however, that unilateral planning pro-cesses that seek to exclude the public will fail—if not in the planning stage,then in implementation. The rapid rise of public interest in, and knowledgeabout, environmental issues through the 1980s has created a climate in whichpublic participation is expected and, indeed, required in almost every planningsituation.

Schramm (1980) offers the following general guidelines for successful riverbasin planning:

1. The institutional framework for the project must allow considerationof a wide range of alternatives to solve observed problems, includingthose that may be outside the specific responsibilities of the planningbodies.

2. The planning agencies must have the expertise needed formultiple-objective planning and evaluation procedures, especially ineconomic, social, and environmental areas.

3. The institutional framework must facilitate adaptation of the plan tomeet changing national, regional, and local priorities.

4. The institutional framework must seek representation of all partiesaffected by the specific development plans and management.

5. The institutional framework must reward initiative and innovationamong the members of the technical team and within cooperatingagencies.

6. The technical team must be sufficiently free from day-to-day responsi-bilities so that they can concentrate on long-range planning and antici-pation of future problems.

7. The institutions must have the capacity for learning and improving overtime, including sufficient continuity over time and the ability to evaluatepast programs.

8. There must be sufficient authority within the institutional frameworkto enforce conformity of execution with construction and operatingplans.

9. The institutional framework must be capable of guaranteeing an accept-able minimum level of professional performance by the technical team.

10 INTRODUCTION

10. The plan implementation stage must include provisions for thetimely and qualitatively and quantitatively sufficient supply of neededservices by other agencies, as well as provisions to ensure continuedfunctioning—that is, the operation, repair, and maintenance of thefacilities and services provided.

Schramm emphasizes the need for coordination and cooperation at local,regional, and national levels, noting that:

Planning and plan implementation do not proceed in a rarified vacuum derivedfrom lofty, immutable principles that are a law unto themselves. Planning isdone for people and people have different and often competing wants, desires,and hopes; political institutions should be designed to meet those wants. One ofthe best ways to condemn planning efforts to oblivion or failure is to turn thetask over to a self-contained, isolated team of experts who fail to communicatewith one another, the people their plans are to serve, and those with political,decision-making authority. Within this dynamic, competing world of humanwants and values there is no ultimate reality or single-dimensioned optimumthat can be determined by scientific methods alone.

Today, almost 30 years after Schramm’s paper, his observations are con-firmed again and again in current case study literature. Van Ast (1999), forexample, calls for a movement beyond integrated water management to “inter-active water management,” recognizing that the public now participate in amore or less equal way with government in the management of water. Thisinteractive relationship, he argues, is in fact natural and essential in collabo-rative management of a shared resource.

1.3 WHY “INTEGRATED” MANAGEMENT?

The idea of trans-media environmental management—management using the“ecosystem” concept—is now widely endorsed. In large part, it was bornof experience showing that single-medium or single-source management wasnot successful in meeting short- or long-term goals. Until the mid-1970s,for instance, almost all pollution control effort was directed at controllingpoint sources like sewage treatment plant effluents and industrial discharges.The International Joint Commission’s Pollution from Land Use ActivitiesReference Group (PLUARG) (PLUARG 1983) examined the reasons thatphosphorus-reduction efforts in the Great Lakes Basin had stalled. Its researchshowed that remediation of the lakes would require integrated managementplans for both point and nonpoint sources throughout the entire Great LakesBasin. In some areas, point-source controls would be most cost-effective; inothers, the focus would have to be on nonpoint-source controls. Without theoverview provided by an integrated strategy, costly management efforts wouldcontinue to fail.

WHY “INTEGRATED” MANAGEMENT? 11

Sometimes water management efforts have been unsuccessful because theyhave focused on a single medium (water) rather than on other environmentalcomponents such as sediment, air, or biological tissue. Mercury poisoningat Minamata, Japan, and the Wabigoon-English River system, northwesternOntario, Canada, are excellent examples. In each case, an industrial facilityhad discharged large volumes of wastewater containing inorganic mercuryinto receiving waters. In each case the inorganic mercury (which is rela-tively nontoxic to humans and other organisms) was converted in the watercolumn and sediments to methyl mercury, which is highly bioaccumulativeand persistent in body tissues. The methyl mercury was readily taken up byinvertebrates in the waters, which in turn were eaten by larger species suchas fish, and these larger animals were consumed by humans. The humans, atthe top of this particular food chain, received concentrated doses of methylmercury, which accumulated in their own body tissues, causing a wide rangeof nervous system impacts. Subsequent abatement efforts aimed at eliminat-ing mercury-using technologies in the Wabigoon facility (a pulp and papermill) were successful. Nevertheless, more than 35 years after the technol-ogy change, mercury continues to be released into the water from river andreservoir sediments and, possibly, from residual deposits within the mill. Con-sideration only of effluent quality from the mill might suggest that the problemwas “solved” 35 years ago; in fact, methyl mercury continues to cycle throughthe Wabigoon-English River system as a result of trans-media environmentalphenomena.

Very often, water management strategies have failed because theyneglected to incorporate the full range of values and perspectives presentamong water users or agencies with an interest in water management.Wilkes (1975), Van Ast (1999), and King et al. (2003) note that thesuccess of many major basin projects has been hampered because differentagencies are responsible for water supply and for water quality, andthe two are not always effectively coordinated. Wilkes observed thatwatershed management requires the involvement of regional, state and,for transboundary basins such as the Rhine, national, and internationalagencies—a measure that was unnecessary at the level of local watermanagement and pollution control. Van Ast (1999) observes that differentinterests, for example fisheries, navigation, hydrology, and drinking watersupply, are often protected by different institutional structures, so thata truly integrated planning process is almost impossible. King et al.(2003) make the same argument, but in the context of environmentalversus economic planning, which are seldom combined or even mutuallyinformative. (King and his colleagues indeed argue for formal integrationbetween environmental assessment, water management, and economicinterests.)

The transition from local to watershed management can also be difficult,because interested agencies may not have the necessary authority to takeon new management roles, may encounter varying political influences, or

12 INTRODUCTION

may simply not work very well together in managing water resources. Inmultilingual countries or watersheds, or in less developed countries whereexternal agencies such as the World Bank may be involved in planninginitiatives, cooperation across agencies and disciplines may be more diff-icult still.

“Integrated” watershed management, although a strategy that is increas-ingly advocated in the literature, is therefore still a relatively new concept.In 1988, McDonald and Kay (1988) observed that as of that time therehad been “few real attempts to provide integrated management informationand even fewer evaluative studies of the policy and management ofintegration within the water resources field.” Recent literature demon-strates that water managers, acutely aware of this challenge, are nowattempting to measure and record their successes—and their failures. Moreand more agencies are now establishing administrative frameworks thatpermit and even encourage management of water on a watershed basis.Less frequently are water management activities integrated with otherresource management activities affecting or affected by water. As Orret al. (2007), Heathcote (1993) and other have noted, these may include,at minimum, the intensity and nature of agricultural activities, forestry,and commercial fisheries. Although integration at the watershed level isincreasingly possible, integration at larger scales remains, in the wordsof McDonald and Kay (1988), “conspicuously absent,” although thereare clear advantages to integrated water management at the internationalscale (especially in international river basins) and even at the globalscale. In large part, this is likely due to institutional fragmentation andineffective interagency communication, as noted by Van Ast (1999) and Kinget al. (2003).

In the mid-1980s, the Canadian federal government established a formalinquiry on federal water policy, in response to a growing awareness thatCanadian water resources were potentially at risk of overuse and underpro-tection. The inquiry called for “visionary policies” for the management ofwater resources in Canada (Pearse et al. 1985).1

The Pearse inquiry drew attention to rising water consumption rates inCanada, conflicting water uses in many areas, and deteriorating water quality,especially in the heavily populated Canada-U.S. border region. Throughouttheir reports, the inquiry panel stressed the need for caution and prevention,rather than careless (over)use and belated reaction. Among their recommen-dations were several relating to the administrative structures of water man-agement and the need for what they termed “comprehensive management.”In particular, they called for (Pearse et al. 1985):

1It should be noted that the U.S. EPA has an Action Plan for water, available online atwww.epa.gov/water/actionplan, and in 2002 the government of Mexico also embarked on anational Clean Water Plan for that country. Neither of these activities, however, involved thescope of debate and sectoral involvement that characterized the Pearse inquiry.

A RECOMMENDED PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT APPROACH 13

• A watershed plan sufficiently comprehensive to take into account all usesof the water system and other activities that affect water flow and quality

• Information about the watershed’s full hydrological regime• An analytical system, or model, capable of revealing the full range of

impacts that would be produced by particular uses and developments inthe watershed

• Specified management objectives for the watershed, with criteria forassessing management alternatives in an objective and unbiased way

• Participation of all relevant regulatory agencies• Provisions for public participation in determining objectives and in man-

agement decisions

These recommendations are particularly notable because they come from aseasoned group of experts in a country that has long considered itself to haveinfinite water resources. In the decades following the release of the inquiry’sreport, many of the panel’s admonitions about excessive water use and dete-riorating water quality have been proven correct, and the need for integratedwatershed management is now seen as urgent. In less water-rich countries,including the United States and many European countries, population densityand a limited resource base make integrated watershed management essentialfor sustainable water use. As noted previously, it may now be social and eco-nomic forces, rather than technical considerations, that determine the successof an integrated watershed planning effort. In this regard, Thompson (1982)has remarked:

Without systematic methods for taking account of uncertainty, the tendency ofthe regulator is to obscure the fact that scientific controversy exists. This ten-dency in turn reinforces the public’s unrealistic expectations that science andtechnology can supply the answers. Closely related to the uncertainty prob-lem is the fact that scientific conclusions, when they are applied to solvinghuman problems, invariably incorporate a range of value judgments. If these areacknowledged, the tendency of the pragmatic professional is to say that, sincethe issue involves value questions, it might as well be confronted as a politicalchoice without the need for an expensive and time-consuming scientific analysis.Alternatively, the regulator may ignore the value question and carry forward thepretense that his decision is a purely technical one. In this case it is better notto pursue the scientific inquiry too far!

1.4 A RECOMMENDED PLANNING AND MANAGEMENTAPPROACH

This book presents a planning approach that is rooted in rational decisionmaking—that is, systematic development and comparison of management

14 INTRODUCTION

alternatives. But this general approach is placed within the context of aninformed public and a rapidly changing external environment. It endorsesBishop’s (1970) observation that water management planning is a processof achieving social change. In that sense, it is a consensus-building process,not a unidimensional scientific exercise. This theme is stressed throughoutthe book. Chapter 4 offers a range of techniques that have been provento be effective in developing social consensus about water managementplanning.

The general approach presented in this book can be summarized as follows:

1. Develop an understanding of watershed components and processes, andof water uses, water users, and their needs (Chapter 2).

2. Identify and rank problems to be solved, or beneficial uses to be restored(Chapter 3).

3. Set clear and specific goals (Chapter 3).

4. Develop a set of planning constraints and decision criteria, includingany weights that may be assigned to criteria (Chapter 5).

5. Identify an appropriate method of comparing management alternatives(Chapter 6 and 7).

6. Develop a list of management options (Chapters 5, 6, and 7).

7. Eliminate options that are not feasible because of time, cost, space, orother constraints (Chapters 5, 6, and 7).

8. Test the effectiveness of remaining feasible options using the methodidentified in (5) and the decision criteria and weights identified in (4)(Chapters 6 and 7).

9. Determine the economic impacts and legal implications of the variousfeasible management options (Chapters 8 and 9) and their environmentalimpacts (Chapter 10).

10. Develop several good management strategies, each encompassingone or more options, for the consideration of decision makers(Chapter 11).

11. Develop clear and comprehensive implementation procedures for theplan that is preferred by decision makers (Chapter 12).

Planners (and authors) find it helpful to divide the planning process intothese discrete steps. In reality, however, the planning process is dynamic andcontinuous. Several tasks or steps may be under way simultaneously. Plan-ning direction may change radically if new information comes to light, ifpolitical forces change dramatically, or if community consensus is redirectedfor other reasons. Above all, integrated watershed planning and managementmust be responsive and adaptive to changing conditions. This means that agood watershed plan is not a single product, such as a document that sits on

A RECOMMENDED PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT APPROACH 15

an agency bookshelf. Instead, it is a framework for continued dialogue aboutwater and the watershed. Ideas endorsed by the planning team must be revis-ited and reviewed periodically to determine whether they are still acceptableor could be improved. New technologies and management thinking must beincorporated into the evolving plan. Most of all, the watershed managementplan must reflect the current societal consensus about the value of water asa resource, about responsibilities and social attitudes, and about the commu-nity’s vision of an ideal watershed state. Integrated watershed managementis, therefore, a journey, not a destination.