EDITORIAL

SUSTAINABLE WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
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can be made, can only be determined through a process in-
Introduction
Sustainable management implies managing for the long
term. Water resource systems that are able to satisfy to the
extent possible the changing demands placed on them over
time, without system degradation, can be called ‘‘sustainable.’’
Just how can water resources management be sustainable
when it is impossible to look into the future with any degree
of certainty? We do not now know what future generations of
volving all the relevant disciplines and all the interested and
impacted stakeholders.
This brief essay attempts to identify some of the major is-
sues and challenges raised by the concept of sustainability ap-
plied to water resources management and to review some prac-
tical ways we can respond to the core issue regarding
sustainability: Given that we can not look into the future with
any degree of certainty, how can we identify what our descen-
dants would like us to do, and even if we knew, how can we

individuals or societies will want or value from such systems.
We do not even know with certainty what all the short-term,
let alone the long-term, impacts of our current management
decisions will be. Nevertheless, we still need to consider what
we think they will be as we develop our plans, designs, and
policies for managing our water resources. Can we maintain
or improve the ability of our water resource systems to provide
the services we wish of them, now and on into the future? If
we can, and if we succeed without foreclosing options future
generations may want to take, our actions today should help
us satisfy not only our immediate demands and desires but
those of future generations as well.
What will the desires of future generations be? Clearly, our
guesses about those future desires, even the educated guesses,
will be wrong. So will many of the predicted impacts resulting
from our current decisions, even if those predictions are based
on our best predictive models. Furthermore, we have no idea
how future generations will value the impacts that actually
occur. For example, consider our past goals of controlling the
flows in our rivers, often through the design and operation of
substantial drainage and river training works. These control
measures were carried out for many worthy reasons—it was
what people wanted and expected from engineers.
Today we have a different view, as evidenced by many of
our ‘‘restoration’’ projects aimed at returning some of our
streams, rivers, and their floodplains to a more natural and less
engineered state. We are currently spending billions of U.S.
dollars doing just that (Stakhiv 1999). Examples of national
restoration and protection programs in the United States in-
clude the Columbia River Salmon Program, the Upper Mis-
sissippi River System Environmental Management Program,
the National Estuary Program, the Coastal America Program,
the Central and Southern Florida comprehensive river and Ev-
erglades restoration projects, the North American Waterfowl
Management Plan, and the Coastal Wetlands Planning Protec-
tion and Restoration Act.
Numerous national, state, and local restoration projects un-
derway in Australia, Europe, and North America provide ev-
idence of changing expectations and values. The way we think
we should be managing our water resource systems over time
is changing, and undoubtedly this change will continue. Rec-
ognizing that social goals and objectives change, we must con-
sider the adaptability or robustness of the systems we design
and manage today to this social uncertainty. Managing our
water resources under this social uncertainty is as important
as the measures we take to manage the physical uncertainty in
the spatial and temporal distribution of the resources them-
selves.
Because sustainability is a function of various economic,
environmental, ecological, social, and physical goals and ob-
jectives, water resources management must inevitably involve
a multidisciplinary, multiparticipatory decision-making pro-
cess. No single discipline, and certainly no single profession
or stakeholder interest group, has the wisdom to know what
will be sustainable—i.e., to know what is right for all of us,
living now and in the future. Such decisions, as best as they
JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT / MARCH/APRIL 2000 / 43
be sure we would act on their behalf?
Defining Sustainability
Sustainability, as defined in the Brundtland Commission’s
report Our Common Future (WCED 1987) focuses on meeting
the needs of both current and future generations. Development
is sustainable if:
‘‘it meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’’
Since the Brundtland report of 1987 (WCED 1987), sustain-
able development has become the subject of discussions and
debates throughout the world (e.g., da Cunha 1989; Engelman
and LeRoy 1993; Hufschmidt and Tejwani 1993; Gleick et al.
1995). From the debates that have taken place on sustainable
development since that definition was proposed in 1987, one
thing is clear: a more specific definition would help those who
are engaged in development work to evaluate their efforts with
respect to sustainability.
While the word sustainability can mean different things to
different people, all would agree it includes a consideration of
the future. But so does ‘‘planning’’ in general. The Brundtland
Commission (WCED 1987) was concerned about how our ac-
tions today will affect ‘‘the ability of future generations to
meet their needs.’’ Just what will those needs be? We today
can only guess as to what they may be. We can also argue
over whether or not it is appropriate to try to meet present or
future needs if they overstress the system designed to meet
them. But in our search for how we can increase the benefits
derived from our water resources and at the same time increase
the sustainability of those systems, can we agree on the fol-
lowing broad definition and guide for what sustainable water
resource systems are?
Sustainable water resource systems are those designed and
managed to fully contribute to the objectives of society,
now and in the future, while maintaining their ecological,
environmental, and hydrological integrity (ASCE 1998).
Do we enhance the welfare of future generations by preserving
or enhancing the current state of our natural environmental
resources and ecological systems? Obviously we do, but over
what time and space scales should we do it? How do we al-
locate over time and space our renewable as well as our non-
renewable resources, e.g., the waters that exist in many deep
ground-water aquifers that are not being replenished by na-
ture? To preserve nonrenewable resources now for the use of
our descendants in the future, in the interests of sustainability,
would imply that those resources should never be consumed
as long as there is a future. If permanent preservation seems
unreasonable, then how much of a nonrenewable resource
might be consumed, and when? It raises the question; does
everything need to be sustained? If not, just what should? And
over what spatial and temporal scales should sustainability
considerations apply?

J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 2000, 126(2): 43-47

 The debate over the definition of sustainability is among
those who differ over just what should be sustainable and how
to achieve it. Without question, determining who in this debate
has the better vision of how we can reach a path of sustainable
development will continue to challenge us all. But this chal-
lenge need not delay our attempts to achieve higher levels of
sustainable water resources management. In doing so, we may
consume some nonrenewable resources now and leave some
for future generations. To achieve higher levels of sustaina-
bility of our renewable water resource systems, we mut pre-
serve and enhance their renewing capacity—their capacity to
produce the desired amounts and qualities of water, and to
support the environment and ecosystems we are all dependent
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upon. This is certainly a necessary condition if such systems
are going to be able to satisfy to the maximum extent possible
the ‘‘needs’’ of future generations, whatever those needs may
be.
Sustainability and Change
Change over time is certain. Just what that change will be
is uncertain. But whatever they are, these changes will surely
impact the physical, biological, and social dimensions of water
resource systems. An essential aspect in the planning, design,
and management of sustainable river basin systems is the an-
ticipation of change: changes in the natural system due to geo-
morphologic processes, changes in the engineered components
due to aging and improved technology, changes in the de-
mands or desires due to a changing society, and even changes
in the supply of water, possibly due to a changing climate.
Sustainable water resource systems are those designed and
operated in ways that make them more adaptive, robust, and
resilient to these changes. Sustainable systems including their
engineering infrastructure may fail, as in times of severe flood-
ing or drought, but when they fail they must be capable of
recovering and performing properly without undue costs (Gal-
loway 1994).
In the face of changes and uncertain impacts, an evolving
and adaptive strategy is a necessary condition of sustainable
water resources management (Holling 1978). Adaptive man-
agement is a process of adjusting management actions and
directions, as appropriate, in light of new information on the
current and likely future condition of our total environment
and on our progress toward meeting our goals and objectives.
Management decisions can be viewed as experiments, subject
to modification—but with goals clearly in mind. Adaptive
management recognizes the limitations of current knowledge
and experience and that we gain in both over time. It helps us
move toward meeting our changing goals over time in the face
of this incomplete knowledge and uncertainty. It accepts the
fact that there is a continual need to review and revise envi-
ronmental and other restoration and management approaches
because of the changing as well as uncertain nature of our
socioeconomic and natural environments.
Changing the social and institutional components of water
resource management systems often involves changing the
way individuals think and act. Any process involving change
will require that we change our institutions—the rules under
which we as a society function. Individuals are primarily re-
sponsible for, and adaptive to, changing political and social
situations. Sustainability requires that public and private insti-
tutions also change over time in ways that are responsive to
the demands of individuals.
Understanding how institutions are structured and function
can help one understand better how water resource system
development policies and operating rules might be altered
when they become deficient, who has the authority to change
such rules, and in what ways. But to understand fully the
boundaries of relevant institutions, water resource profession-
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J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 2000, 126(2): 43-47
als must understand how institutions function under stress or
under pressures for and against change from individuals within
and outside the institution. Who teaches this to engineers?
Sustainability and Scale
If we maintain too broad an interpretation of sustainable
development, it becomes difficult to determine progress toward
achieving it. In particular, concern only with the sustainability
of larger river basins could overlook the unique attributes of
particular local watershed economies, environments, ecosys-
tems, resource substitution, and human health. On the other
hand, not every hectare of land or every reach of every stream
in every watershed need be sustainable or self-sufficient. Even
at river-basin or regional levels, it may not be possible to meet
the ‘‘needs’’ or demands of even the current generation, much
less future generations, if those needs or demands are greater
than what can be obtained on a continuing basis at acceptable
economic, environmental, and social costs. This highlights the
need to consider the appropriate spatial scales when applying
sustainability criteria to specific water resource systems.
We also need to consider the appropriate temporal scales
when considering the sustainability of specific river basin wa-
ter resource systems. The achievement of higher levels of wa-
ter resource system sustainability does not imply there will
never be periods of time in the future in which the level of
welfare derived from those systems decreases. Given the var-
iations in natural water supplies—the fact that floods and
droughts do occur—it is impossible, or at least very costly, to
design and operate water resource systems that will never
‘‘fail.’’ During periods of ‘‘failure,’’ the economic benefits de-
rived from such systems may decrease. The ecological benefits
may in fact depend on these events. One of the challenges of
measuring sustainability is to identify the appropriate temporal
scales in which those measurements should be made.
Sustainability Indices and Guidelines
Sustainability measures provide ways we can quantify rel-
ative levels of sustainability. They can be defined in a number
of ways. One way is to express relative levels of sustainability
as separate or weighted combinations of statistical measures
of various criteria that contribute to human welfare. These wel-
fare criteria can be economic, environmental, ecological and
social. For many criteria, the time duration as well as the ex-
tent may be important.
Achieving Sustainability
Given these issues and challenges with respect to the plan-
ning and management of sustainable water resource systems,
it is appropriate to ask what can and should be done. Several
recent reports have addressed this question. One such report
is that of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development
(PCSD) (Sustainable 1996). The PCSD provided numerous
recommendations for achieving a sustainable economy, envi-
ronment, and social system. Federal agencies could be di-
rected, for example, to study how they might implement the
recommendations of the Council. Anticipating such a directive,
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, having a major role in the
development and management of our nation’s water resources,
completed such a study (USACE 1999).
The Corps Civil Works Program includes water resources
planning, project operations and maintenance, and regulatory
decision-making functions. Just what the Corps can or can not
do is dictated by many directives and regulations, one of which
is the Principles and Guidelines (P&G) (USWRC 1983). The
P&G focus on maximizing national economic development
(NED) subject to environmental and social or institutional
 laws and regulations. In contrast the PCSD recommendations
focus on identifying the best tradeoff between economic de-
velopment (NED), environmental quality (EQ), and social
wellbeing and other social effects (SWB/OSE) through the in-
volvement of all interested stakeholders in the planning and
decision-making processes.
Other recently published reports that address sustainable
water resources management (Gleick et al. 1995; USACE
1999) and the NRC reports (New 1999) also lay out some
conceptual blueprints that water managers and their manage-
ment agencies, such as the Corps, could consider as part of
their program implementation responsibilities. To the extent
agencies such as the Corps of Engineers can and do implement
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any new ways of planning and management may depend more
on legislative and institutional changes than on their willing-
ness or abilities to plan, design, and operate their systems con-
sistent with the principles of sustainable development.
Yet even without new legislation, there are always sensible,
cost-effective, and institutionally feasible initiatives that can
be undertaken to meet the general principles of sustainable
development. But these are common sense actions that are
often part of conventional initiatives. They can readily be re-
constituted under the rubric of sustainable development, and
do not require a ‘‘new’’ management paradigm. So the ques-
tion is: ‘‘What is new or unique about sustainable develop-
ment?’’ What are some of the features that require particular
attention and emphasis in the next generation of water project
planning and management that will make a difference? What
does sustainability advocate, in practical terms, that goes be-
yond our current generation of ‘‘best management practices’’
and existing evaluation protocols such as the National Envi-
ronmental Protection Act (NEPA) of 1969 and the ‘‘Principles
and Guidelines for Water Resources Planning’’?
More simply, how would a water resource project, or wa-
tershed development strategy, that is planned under sustainable
development principles compare to one planned under the best
of current planning and evaluation practices? Would there be
a difference if the planning is for growth versus development?
Is there a fundamental distinction between sustainable devel-
opment strategies in ‘‘growing economies’’ versus the ‘‘de-
veloped economies’’?
To address these questions, it may be helpful to differentiate
growth from development. Growth involves making the pie
bigger, building new capacity in new places, improving the
standard of living, changing land use, etc. Development in-
volves capacity expansion in situ, redistribution of existing
resources, more efficient use of scarce resources, water quality
management, and the like. In the early part of our nation’s
history, waterways were developed to promote transportation.
Water resources development served as a basic instrument for
growth of settlements and economic expansion. The philoso-
phy of growth was essentially, ‘‘build it and they will come.’’
As a consequence, we now have a formidable water-based
infrastructure in place. It reliably provides the needed services
and the flexibility to reallocate and redistribute those resources
towards different needs and objectives.
Clearly, the rate of new water project construction has
slowed considerably, due partly to gains from water conser-
vation, recycling, and improvements in water quality, partly to
improvements in the efficient operation of large water systems,
and finally to the increased costs and environmental con-
straints imposed on new development. Growth in the United
States, as in many other developed regions, is no longer being
driven by water resources development. Rather, new water re-
sources projects are being justified as the consequence of
growth or by development that is being stimulated by other,
exogenous, factors, So, whatever steps are taken to introduce
and promote sustainable development within the water re-
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J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 2000, 126(2): 43-47
sources sector may be negated by other dominant growth de-
terminants in other sectors.
Vice President Gore’s recent ‘‘Livability Agenda’’ may be
a recognition of the reality that contemporary growth, subur-
ban sprawl, and other disjointed development is occurring de-
spite ostensible resource limitations and regulatory constraints.
There are other important economic drivers, sectors, and in-
stitutional deficiencies that must be taken to account in the
overall attainment of sustainable development as a prerequisite
to more effective water management.
Many recent U.S. legislative initiatives in water resources
have been in response to the flooding in the upper Mississippi
River Basin in 1993. Most were of the variety which, right-
fully, tried to remove inducements and other ‘‘moral hazards’’
to flood-plain development and ecosystem degradation. How-
ever, there is also a moral and ethical obligation of institutions
to protect the public from extreme risks to property and life
after all the reasonable preventive measures are taken. That is,
once the basic decisions of land use, transportation, economic
development, and growth have been made for a region or wa-
tershed, then the water resources infrastructure decisions fol-
low.
From a water manager’s perspective, there is a difference
between identifying and evaluating alternative water manage-
ment measures to reduce risks and deliver desired services for
existing development and measures to limit and control com-
munity development. Water resources management should not
be the instrument of meeting social objectives unless those
objectives are derived through a public participatory mecha-
nism, locally for local issues and nationally for issues of na-
tional interest. The value of commissions such as the PCSD
is to help initiate this participatory process at the local as well
as national levels. The social/civic sustainability goals of the
PCSD should be resolved and legislated in our political pro-
cess. They then could serve as constraints to water manage-
ment, rather than having water managers deal with them as
explicit planning objectives, except of course where local in-
terests desire more than what the constraints specify.
Water resources management is the vector sum of a pro-
gression of legislation, policies, regulations, engineering prac-
tice, and institutional traditions. Changes in how we manage
our water resources are often motivated by each flood,
drought, environmental disaster, or human health threat. All of
these changes could be directed towards what we today might
label sustainable development. Added to that are numerous
cross-cutting and overlapping ‘‘programs’’ and ‘‘initiatives’’
designed to achieve sustainability in many areas of water re-
sources and environmental protection. The recent ‘‘American
Heritage Rivers’’ initiative, ‘‘Coastal America,’’ the ‘‘Clean
Water Initiative,’’ and a host of other federally coordinated
programs are all designed to satisfy the basic principles of
sustainable development.
From all of this activity, how do we determine the ‘‘right
path,’’ the ‘‘correct strategy,’’ or the ‘‘optimal future’’? What
is or should be sustainable, and what need not be sustainable?
How do we account for the inevitable and profound effects of
future technological developments that may mitigate many of
the adverse effects of current unsustainable practices? With the
exception of the loss of species, what other resources are vul-
nerable to irreversible decisions? Of all the possible strategies,
which is the ‘‘best’’ for a nation, a state, or a county? What
are the goals, and who should decide them? Wrapped around
all of this is the issue of governance, of federal (often un-
funded) mandates and state sovereignty issues. There are many
more questions like these that need answering before we can
say we understand the ramifications of sustainable develop-
ment and can begin to truly implement sustainable develop-
ment principles and goals.
 One of the more interesting reports, which addresses many
of these issues within the context of water resources manage-
ment, is the work of Gleick et al. (1995) on a ‘‘Sustainable
Vision for California Water 2020.’’ The authors lay out a ‘‘vi-
sion’’ for future water resources management in California,
propose changes in the way in which planning is conducted
for future water resources problems, identify the feasible range
of options (existing technologies and best management prac-
tices) available, and offer a strategy for implementation. They
contrast their ‘‘sustainable strategy’’ with the strategy of the
California Department of Water Resources (DWR), as pre-
sented in their 1994 ‘‘California Water Plan.’’ They formulate
alternative feasible futures and then identify strategies for im-
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plementing those futures. But contentious parts of the planning
process, which deal with identifying and distributing the ben-
efits and costs, conflicts between local and federal decision
criteria, and making tradeoffs among conflicting objectives—
i.e., the normative evaluation components of planning—are
missing. This is where the difficulties begin in implementation,
and where the goals of sustainable development might founder.
Gleick et al. showed us a blueprint for water resources man-
agement that meets an overarching set of ‘‘sustainability cri-
teria.’’ Most of this blueprint is currently routinely considered
in water planning.
There are many examples of the type of planning that
Gleick et al. advocate. The reality is just that the final out-
comes don’t match expectations. The crux of the matter is
more one of evaluation—what are the decision criteria, what
are the objectives, and how do we measure and make tradeoffs
among and distribute the impacts? In other words, how do we
decide who benefits and who pays and how much?
The irony is that there is a rigorous, comprehensive, and
internally consistent planning and evaluation framework al-
ready in place for water resources planning: the Water Re-
sources Council’s ‘‘Principles and Guidelines’’ (USWRC
1983). The concepts and principles within the P&G reflect the
three principal goals of the PCSD: economic prosperity (NED,
RED); environmental health (EQ); and social well-being and
equity (OSE). A recent National Academy of Sciences study
(New 1999) found that the ‘‘Principles and Guidelines’’ need
to be updated and revised to ‘‘incorporate contemporary ana-
lytical techniques and changes in public values and federal
agency programs.’’ We need to modernize the evaluation pro-
cedures rather than rejecting them outright or substituting an-
other framework.
The writers believe the sustainable development paradigm
really seems to be advocating not so much a different planning
paradigm but rather an extended set of evaluation factors—
different criteria and weights on objectives to reflect a per-
ceived shift in public preferences. Most objectives and criteria
used by agencies such as the Corps of Engineers are legisla-
tively designated and fixed in law after considerable public
and political debate. Inherently, the existing framework reflects
a comprehensive, but perhaps outdated, set of societal values
and preferences. The PCSD is useful in that it explicitly lays
out some goals, principles, and premises for planning and de-
cision making, with a blueprint for achieving those goals. This
blueprint fits more into a ‘‘neutral’’ rather than normative de-
cision-making framework.
The sustainable development framework, with the evolving
watershed planning initiatives of EPA as the leading propo-
nents, would substitute the current benefit-cost procedures and
normative decision criteria (that maximize national economic
development benefits while meeting environmental protection
constraints) in favor of a more eclectic and loosely structured
evaluation and decision-making model. Changes are being
made in this direction, but they are largely being accomplished
administratively and not by changing the laws that govern the
46 / JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT / MARCH/APRIL 2000
J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 2000, 126(2): 43-47
current practices and procedures. This promotes internal
agency conflicts, and exacerbates interagency inconsistencies
for managing common resources. Conversely, under an up-
dated Principles and Guidelines, there could be increased co-
ordination and cooperation among federal, state, and local wa-
ter management agencies in identifying and investing in
projects that take into account national as well as local goals,
preferences, needs, wants, and desires.
In the end, one can formulate all the visionary, creative fu-
tures for sustainable development that can be accommodated
by computers and human imagination. Sorting through these
possible futures for water management requires a planning
framework and a replicable set of evaluation criteria that
should be common to all resource management agencies. The
PCSD and ASCE/UNESCO efforts are attempts to embellish
on a new paradigm for resource management. The problem is
not so much in the goals and objectives of sustainable devel-
opment as outlined in those reports, but rather in the absence
of an institutional infrastructure that allows natural resource
managers and decision makers to readily debate, test, and
adopt these ideas as part of a nested hierarchy of federal, state,
and local program and project implementation process.
What better time than now to revise the P&G (with its pri-
mary emphasis of contributing to national economic devel-
opment) so as to provide the Corps and similar resource man-
agement agencies of the government with a clear mandate to
support the goals of sustainable development as defined by the
PCSD? This is especially true in light of the increasing con-
tributions of many of those agencies to the physical and eco-
logical restoration of waterways and watersheds.
While sustainable development has not been made an ex-
plicit criterion in Corps decision making, the planning, eval-
uation, and project approval processes involving public partic-
ipation and shared visioning already contain many elements
of a structured approach to dealing with sustainable develop-
ment.
Today the Corps has the opportunity, and in many cases the
obligation, to support environmental health and sustainability
objectives, including biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, into
its planning and analysis processes. This especially applies to
projects involving the protection and restoration of aquatic
ecosystems, but it also applies in its operation of Corps water
resources projects. In addition, the evolving policies for the
Corps involvement in watershed planning emphasize a com-
prehensive view of water and related land resources problems.
The Corps regulatory program follows sustainable devel-
opment guidelines both through its contributions to watershed
management and through the public interest reviews that are
required inputs to decision making for permit actions. The fac-
tors considered in such reviews (in addition to economic) in-
clude conservation, aesthetics, general environmental con-
cerns, wetlands enhancement, historic properties, fish and
wildlife values, flood hazard reduction, flood plain values, land
use, navigation, shore erosion and accretion, recreation, water
supply and conservation, water quality, energy needs, safety,
food and fiber production, mineral needs, considerations of
property ownership, and, in general, the needs and welfare of
the people. Evaluations and tradeoffs are made using the best
professional judgment along with input from the public, en-
vironmental groups, and state and local agencies.
Conclusions
Sustainable water resource systems, as we view them, are:
water resource systems designed and managed to fully con-
tribute to the objectives of society, now and in the future,
while maintaining their ecological, environmental, and hy-
drological integrity.
 They must be planned, designed, and managed in such a way
that the life-support system at all biological levels remains
functional and that the water and related land resources are
not irreversibly degraded over time. This imposes constraints
on every stage of development—from project planning to its
final operation and management within its overall social and
technical system.
Sustainability issues are not new issues, nor is sustainability
a new concept. Yet the current interest in sustainable water
resources management clearly comes from a realization that
some of the activities we who inhabit this earth today perform
could be causing irreversible damage. This damage may ad-
versely affect not only our own lives but also the lives of those
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who follow us.
In many situations, the overall goals of conserving environ-
mental and natural resources and alleviating poverty and ec-
onomic injustice are compatible and mutually reinforcing.
However, there will always be conflicting views on how these
overall goals can be met. Tradeoffs will have to be made
among the conflicting views and objectives. The challenge for
political leaders and professional resource managers is to make
the best of situations where complements are real, while re-
maining aware that there are very real situations that will re-
quire difficult decisions and choices if sustainable water re-
sources management is to be achieved.
It is clear that there are many unanswered questions related
to the sustainable development and management of any renew-
able or nonrenewable water resource system. No manager of
water resources has the luxury of waiting until all these ques-
tions are answered. But those involved in managing the re-
sources can still work toward increasingly sustainable levels
of development and management. This includes learning how
to get more from our resources and how to produce less waste
that degrades these resources. New ideas and new technology
will have to be developed to achieve increased economically
efficient recycling and the use of recycled materials (Albertson
1995). Management approaches that are more nonstructural
and compatible with the environmental and ecological life-
support systems must be identified. Better ways of planning,
developing, upgrading, maintaining, and paying for the infra-
structure that permits effective and efficient resource manage-
ment and provides needed services must also be defined.
As water resource managers, considerations of sustainability
challenge us to develop and use better methods for explicitly
considering the possible needs and expectations of future gen-
erations along with our own. We must develop and use better
methods of identifying development paths that keep more op-
tions open for future populations to meet their own, and their
descendants’, needs and expectations. Finally, we must create
better ways of identifying and quantifying the amounts and
distribution of benefits and costs (however many ways they
might be measured) when considering tradeoffs in resource use
and consumption among current and future generations as well
as among different populations within a given generation.
In striving for sustainable development of a river basin’s
water and related land resources, the effectiveness of any
mechanism devised to realize that goal depends ultimately on
the quality of the individuals entrusted with pursuing it. En-
gineers, economists, ecologists, planners, and other profes-
sionals must be involved, but they can be only part of that
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J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 2000, 126(2): 43-47
involvement. Professionals must work within the social infra-
structure of a community or region. Successful collaboration
with an informed and involved public can lead to more so-
cially compatible uses of resources and to more creative, ap-
propriate, and hence sustainable, uses of technology for ad-
dressing a community’s or region’s water resource problems
or needs.
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Daniel P. Loucks
School of Civil and Environmental
Engineering
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Eugene Z. Stakhiv
Institute for Water Resources
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Alexandria, VA 22315
Lynn R. Martin
Institute for Water Resources
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Alexandria, VA 22315