Water resources project planning

The goals of water resources project planning may be by the use of constructed facilities, or structural measures, or by management and legal techniques that do not require constructed facilities. The latter are called non-structural measures and may include rules to limit or control water and land use which complement or substitute for constructed facilities. A project may consist of one or more structural or non-structural resources. Water resources planning techniques are used to determine what measures should be employed to meet water needs and to take advantage of opportunities for water resources development, and also to preserve and enhance natural water resources and related land resources.

The scientific and technological development has been conspicuously evident during the twentieth century in major fields of engineering. But since water resources have been practiced for many centuries, the development in this field may not have been as spectacular as, say, for computer sciences. However, with the rapid development of substantial computational power resulting reduced computation cost, the planning strategies have seen new directions in the last century which utilises the best of the computer resources. Further, economic considerations used to be the guiding constraint for planning a water resources project. But during the last couple of decades of the twentieth century there has been a growing awareness for environmental sustainability. And now, environmental constrains find a significant place in the water resources project (or for that matter any developmental project) planning besides the usual economic and social constraints.