ISSN:
1745-6584
Source:
Blackwell Publishing Journal Backfiles 1879-2005
Topics:
Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering
,
Geosciences
Notes:
Approximately two-thirds of the present population live in the urban environment; by the year 2000, it is anticipated that five-sixths of the population will be urban. The trend of metropolitan growth is not the continued growth of major cities, but rather the expansion in population and size of the smaller suburban communities. The urbanization of the country is reflected in the emphasis on comprehensive water resources development – area-wide and basin-wide planning and management. In some areas of intense urban development the problems of water quality control, recreational use of water, and water for cooling and waste transport have become more significant than problems of adequate supplies for withdrawal. A major share of future water resource investigations will necessarily be directed to the urban environment, where geologic and hydrologic data is needed in urban planning.The general pattern associated with community development–the initial use of ground-water resources by individual systems, to the use of a community well and distribution system, and finally the use of surface-water sources far removed from the urban center–has contributed to the development of the “commodity concept’ of water use. By this attitude the water resource is viewed only in terms of its adequacy as a water supply; waste discharge and recreation uses are being ignored or considered a‘ downstream” problem. This concept is particularly inappropriate when applied in the multicommunity complexes of the metropolitan areas where there is little in the way of a “downstream.” Water problems must be dealt with at the metropolitan level rather than at the individual community level; and not by a proliferation of smaller units of government and public agencies that often overlap and duplicate effort. The nature of the metropolitan complex requires that we think in terms of closed systems involving reclamation and reuse rather than in terms of the open system of withdrawal, use and discharge.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6584.1969.tb01270.x
