How water planning works in Georgia
Georgia's planning system brings statewide objectives together with regional knowledge about water resources and their users. To read its documents well, start by separating the overall framework, regional recommendations and decisions about particular facilities.
Three layers to keep in view
The statewide framework establishes the planning approach. EPD identifies the 2004 planning legislation and the State Water Plan adopted in 2008 as central steps in that framework. Official explanation.
Regional planning brings forecasts and assessments into discussions about appropriate management practices. Councils consider resource conditions and the needs of their regions. EPD's process diagram connects technical information, evaluation of future needs and selection of responses. Regional planning process.
Implementation involves the organizations responsible for the actions a plan describes. Read the implementation chapter to find the intended lead, partners, timing and evidence of progress. A recommendation in a planning document does not, by itself, establish that a project has been funded or completed.
The questions a planning cycle asks
- What is the starting point? Identify water sources, uses, infrastructure and environmental conditions, together with the dates of the underlying information.
- What might change? Forecasts estimate possible future demand and wastewater returns. They depend on assumptions about population, economic activity and the way water is used.
- What can the resources support? Assessments evaluate conditions using defined models, locations, scenarios and criteria.
- Where is action needed? Comparing the forecasts with the assessments helps identify resource issues. Comparing demand with infrastructure capacity answers a related but different question.
- What response is appropriate? Options may involve managing demand, developing supply, improving treatment, protecting watersheds or obtaining better information.
- How will progress be assessed? The plan needs a way to connect proposed action with responsibility and follow-up.
This sequence is a reading framework. The exact models, categories and implementation arrangements must be checked in the edition you are using.
Why the documents use different boundaries
A planning region is an organizational area. A river basin is defined by drainage. A utility serves its own customers, and an aquifer can extend across several administrative areas. An assessment location is another spatial unit. A finding about one of these does not automatically apply to all the others.
Use the region guide to orient yourself, then locate the relevant basin, source or facility in the original report. Regional names are helpful labels, but they are not complete descriptions of every water resource within the boundary.
Why water quality belongs in a supply plan
A community needs a reliable source and infrastructure capable of treating and delivering water. Its wastewater also needs an appropriate treatment and disposal route. River flows, pollutant loads and receiving-water conditions can therefore affect the available management choices even where a broad regional supply assessment looks favorable.
For definitions of the three resource-assessment areas, use EPD's pages on surface-water availability, groundwater availability and surface-water quality.
Choosing a document
For an introduction, use the statewide historical overview. For a regional research question, select a document guide. For present planning, obtain the applicable edition from the official catalog.
The reading guide explains how to record an edition, scenario and source page so that a claim can be checked later.