Benjamin Franklin once said, “When the well runs dry, we know the worth of water.” Mr. Franklin could have just as easily added that we’ll also know the value of flood protection when the levee fails. Aside from air, water is perhaps the most fundamental element for all living things, and yet we’ve historically taken water resources planning for granted, or at least the planning efforts have typically been disconnected from land use planning and flood management efforts. Unfortunately, we’ve reached a point in our society where we can no longer afford to make land use, water resource, and flood management planning decisions in a vacuum. Today, “integration” is the catch phrase and integrated management planning is the new standard we must live by.

Flood control projects often have different goals than water supply projects. Both must be taken into consideration when making critical decisions during land planning. Environmental considerations are becoming increasingly important, if not the driving force. This four-sided equation is where the action is today. Integrating these competing goals is the art and science of the future. For most of us, water resource planning only becomes an issue when the tap goes dry, the toilet backs up, or the river floods. All of our water resources are valuable, and we are slowly coming to realize the critical need for an integrated approach to the use and management of these resources.

As demands for water resources increase and the availability becomes more limited, there is increasing pressure to share and manage these resources. The consideration of potential impacts becomes a high civic priority and new regulations are implemented to govern uses. It is important for all of us to understand where our water comes from, as well as what the issues and costs of utilizing these resources are. The decisions we make today regarding how we manage our existing water resources, and how we make our future land use planning and flood management decisions are some of the most important and pressing issues facing us today.

As our water resources become increasingly scarce it is likely to take the place of oil in our economy. Already, we’ve seen many pundits predict that future wars will be fought over water–this is already the case, politically speaking, out west and in the southeast. Hopefully, we will never really come to blows over water. However, one of our most eloquent Americans, Mark Twain, is reputedly to have said, “Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over.”