Water Supply as New Growth Management Tool

Abstract

Some rapidly growing western states are reevaluating the traditional dogma that water availability should never be a limitation on urban growth. This reevaluation is reflected in new statutes that mandate increased coordination between available water supplies and new growth and in scattered judicial decisions that give local units of government more control over the allocation of water. Coordination of water supply and growth is a major issue in the West because urban growth places new demands on a scare resource and exacerbates the intense competition among agricultural, municipal, industrial, and environmental claimants for these supplies. However, the coordination issues can arise in other places where rapid growth is occurring and there are competing demands for available water supplies.