Case Study: Municipal and Regional Water Supply Planning

We are working with local governments across the U.S. and in other countries to demonstrate ways to meet growing water needs for human use while keeping rivers and estuaries healthy.

Rivanna River, Virginia
Like many communities in the eastern U.S., the city of Charlottesville, Virginia experienced a severe multi-year drought that built to a head in the summer of 2002. The city and county governments issued mandatory water conservation requirements that enabled the residents of the area to make it through the drought without fully draining their local water supply reservoirs. Water authorities in the area are working hard to provide additional water storage, such as by enlarging an existing reservoir, to ensure a reliable supply of water through the coming decades.

We are working with local water planners, conservation organizations, and interested citizens to gain adoption of the principles of ecologically sustainable water management. This will help to ensure that the plants and animals supported by the Rivanna River, and the many ecosystem services such as recreational swimming, fishing, and canoeing will be sustained as future human needs for water are addressed. We are leading an effort to develop an environmental flow prescription for the river, so that water planners will understand what river flows are needed to keep the river ecosystem healthy.