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Show Introduction River Basins: A Key to Water Resources Development What we can do as a Nation to realize water resources potentialities and solve some of the prob- lems we have already created is suggested in volume 1 of this report of the President's Water Resources Policy Commission. That document, A Water Policy for the American People, directs attention to the goals that must be attained and the steps and adjustments in our procedures that are necessary to achieve them. ~ A river basin is an entity; the river is its common denominator.. This fact emerged early in the Com- mission's worm and became increasingly evident as its study progressed. The river basin is composed of all the la^d that drains to the river. It en- compasses the farms in the lowlands and plains, the pastures on tne rolling hills, and the forests of the mountains. It includes all the various communi- ties within it and the industries that support its commerce. It contains the river as the predominant feature which sustains human needs that depend on water, and gives life to the economy of the region. In some instances river basins include such far- flung areas that they may be subdivided for develop- ment purposes. In others, several may be found to constitute together areas of common regional interest for which water and land resources pro- grams may be coordinated. But in spite of these variations, the river basin was found to provide the natural unit for investigation of water resources policy. The basins chosen do not, of course, include all the important ones in the country. Nor do they necessarily represent in every instance the ultimate planning units. Rather each was chosen because it afforded an especially useful laboratory for the study of specific problems which were found to require sound answers in terms of the Nation's water re- sources policy. Our river basins have long been settled. Some, like that of the Rio Grande, supported a culture whose history is lost in antiquity. Others, like those of the Connecticut River and the Potomac, had settlements a hundred years before the Revolu- tion. The importance of others, like the Columbia and Colorado Basins, has become evident only since the turn of the century. Our rivers have been used extensively. They were, and are, the source of our domestic and in- dustrial water supply. They furnished the early pioneers with fish and fur. They were a highway for the canoes of the voyageurs as well as for flat- boats that took adventurous settlers far upstream and down to virgin forest or fertile plains; today some are busy with water-borne traffic. They pro- vided, and still provide, an economical means of waste disposal. They served to turn the wheels of grist mills; today they power the diversified indus- tries of scores of communities throughout the country. They furnished much of the recreation of an earlier period; the shimmering ripples of great lakes and the roar of turbulent waters are perhaps more eagerly sought today than ever. In examining policy and testing theory, as a basis for recommending policy, the Commission studied 10 river basins. Five of them-the Central Valley, the Colorado, the Columbia, the Missouri, and the Rio Grande-lie west of the ninety-seventh merid- ian, in areas of relatively low rainfall. The other five, the Alabama-Coosa, the Connecticut, the Ohio, the Potomac, and the Tennessee, are in the more humid East. The Commission studied these rivers because of the experience the Nation has already gained in river programs, an experience in which Federal, State, and local agencies have participated, an experience in which the public has shared. The Commission realized that the American people are awakening to the new concept that river XVII |
