Managing America's rivers: Who's doing it?

Abstract

The US is blessed with abundant water resources in comparison to many other countries, yet it faces problems associated with periodic droughts, floods, an aging infrastructure, threatened riverine and coastal environments and ecosystems, conflicts over multiple uses, and now new issues related to safety and security. A recent water policy forum (AWRA, 2002) of private, non‐governmental, and governmental professionals involved in water management throughout the country addressed these challenges. While there were many different opinions on how to meet these challenges, there were no disagreements on the need for national vision and leadership in supporting basin‐wide integrated water resources planning and management. Federal and non‐federal water and related land development and management practices and projects within river basins need to fit into an integrated plan for the entire basin if indeed these river systems are to be effectively planned and managed as integrated systems. The condition of America's major river basins in 10, 20 or 50 years depends on how well various economic and environmental interests are managed in an integrated and sustainable way. This paper proposes some approaches for moving toward meeting these goals.