Coordination between Water Resources Development and Environmental Needs

Better coordination is needed between engineers designing water resources development projects and environmental protection efforts, to avoid having promising projects sidetracked because of environmental conflicts. Past efforts at coordination in the Columbia River Basin, where dams block salmon migration, illustrate some of the hurdles to coordination. Better coordination also is important in the southeast U.S., where demand for water is growing but diversions would exacerbate drought effects on wetland organisms, and conflicts could not be worked out. Some cases of successful coordination also are summarized, but new, holistic approaches are needed. Equally important, such approaches must be funded.