 | Drought Management and Its Impact on Public Water Systems (1986)
In order to focus attention and debate on issues in water science, technology, and policy, the Board introduced a colloquium series in 1985. These colloquia are held once a year following a scheduled Board meeting and are designed to provide public forums for discussion and debate, to stimulate research, and to provide an opportunity for Board members and liaison representatives to interact with the scientific and engineering community. The first colloquium, Drought Management and Its Impact on Public Water Systems, addressed the need for water conservation and planning for future water needs.
Drought preparedness has suffered from neglect. Historically, research efforts have focused on problems associated with the over abundance of water rather than its scarcity. Droughts may be infrequent, or of short duration, but they have serious and,: long-lasting effects on communities. Information from previous droughts is not effectively communicated to the public, nor is it perhaps always fully understood by water professionals. There is a great need to educate the public about the advantages and disadvantages of proposed alternative courses of action.
Presentations of principal authors provided much of the substance of this report which points out that there is substantial need for continued research on drought and its impact on management of public water systems. Key research topics should include: cause of drought; development of effective drought alert mechanisms; probability analysis of drought; quantification of the consequences of system failure during drought; and identification of the institutional environment necessary for successful implementation of drought management plans. The research should be supported by federal agencies, universities, the water supply industry, and private foundations. The measure of facility adequacy should be established by orderly comparison of incremental facility requirements versus the use of demand management techniques over the range of probability conditions. As the risk of system inadequacy decreases, the relative advantage of demand management techniques can be expected to increase pre-drought preparation, i.e., good system maintenance program, periodic assessment of system capacity, identification and appraisal of the reliability of emergency or supplemental sources of supply, and development of the framework of public information programs needed to implement drought management measures, holds the key to adequate drought management of public water systems.
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