Preventing the repetition: Or, what Los Angeles' experience in water management can teach Atlanta about urban water disputes

[1] Southern California's water history is an epic story with larger-than-life characters and ambitions and abundant hubris. Students of water policy might reasonably ask: Does this story, while unique to greater Los Angeles, hold lessons for other metropolises experiencing water conflict caused by explosive growth? We examine this question by considering similarities between the challenges facing Atlanta, Georgia, one of the nation's fastest growing cities in the 21st century, with those of Los Angeles. We focus on junctures where important decisions regarding water were made and how these decisions continue to challenge both cities' futures. Atlanta's financial, cultural, and environmental imprint on its surrounding region share remarkable similarities with Los Angeles' influence trajectory: it is the largest city in the southeast, a principal transportation and business hub, and it is embroiled in water conflict with nearby communities and adjoining states.

[1]  A. Michelsen,et al.  Economics of optioning agricultural water rights for urban water supplies during drought , 1993 .

[2]  E. Barbier.  Water and Economic Growth , 2002 .

[3]  Jan G. Laitos,et al.  Energy And Natural Resources Law In A Nutshell , 1992 .

[4]  D. Wangsness.  The National Water-Quality Assessment Program: example of study unit design for the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, 1991-97 , 1997 .

[5]  S. Erie,et al.  Beyond Chinatown: The Metropolitan Water District, Growth, and the Environment in Southern California , 2006 .

[6]  Tony Clarke,et al.  Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water , 2000 .

[7]  Dana Petersen,et al.  Community‐Based Participatory Research as a Tool for Policy Change: A Case Study of the Southern California Environmental Justice Collaborative , 2006 .

[8]  N. Hundley,et al.  The great thirst : Californians and water : a history , 2001 .

[9]  William Cronon,et al.  Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West , 1992 .

[10]  Matthew A. Cole,et al.  Economic growth and water use , 2004 .

[11]  Allan A. Schoenherr.  A natural history of California , 1992 .

[12]  Carl W. Condit,et al.  Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West , 1991 .

[13]  David L. Feldman,et al.  Barriers to Adaptive Management: Lessons from the Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint Compact , 2008 .

[14]  K. Starr.  Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era , 1985 .

[15]  Nancy L. Barber,et al.  Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2000 , 2004 .

[16]  Jeffery A. Ballweber.  Prospects for Comprehensive, Integrated Watershed Management Under Existing Law , 1995 .

[17]  Nancy L. Barber,et al.  Estimated use of water in the United States in 2005 , 2009 .

[18]  Donald Worster.  Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s , 1979 .

[19]  D. Feldman.  Tennessee's Inter-Basin Water Transfer Act: a changing water policy agenda , 2001 .

[20]  A. Tarlock.  Law of Water Rights and Resources , 1988 .

[21]  Adam M. Sowards.  Glen Canyon Dammed: Inventing Lake Powell and the Canyon Country , 1999 .

[22]  Ben Crow,et al.  Gender, Class, and Access to Water: Three Cases in a Poor and Crowded Delta , 2002 .

[23]  H. Molotch.  The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place , 1976, American Journal of Sociology.

[24]  J. K. Cooley.  The War over Water , 1984 .

[25]  Andrew N. Gray,et al.  Adaptive Ecosystem Management in the Pacific Northwest: a Case Study from Coastal Oregon , 2000 .

[26]  Kai N. Lee.  Appraising Adaptive Management , 1999 .

[27]  Janice A. Beecher,et al.  Integrated resource planning fundamentals , 1995 .

[28]  A. Schnaiberg,et al.  Environment and Society the Enduring Conflict , 1994 .

[29]  G. Nash.  The Federal Landscape: An Economic History of the Twentieth-Century West , 1999 .

[30]  Donald C. Jackson,et al.  Hoover Dam: An American Adventure , 1989 .

[31]  Richard E. Howitt,et al.  Managing Water Scarcity: An Evaluation of Interregional Transfers , 1984 .

[32]  David N. Pellow.  Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago , 2002 .

[33]  H. Molotch,et al.  Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place , 1987 .

[34]  W. Blomquist,et al.  RATES, RIGHTS, AND REGIONAL PLANNING IN THE METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 1 , 2002 .

[35]  J. B. Ruhl,et al.  Water Wars, Eastern Style: Divvying Up the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin , 2009 .

[36]  Neil S. Grigg,et al.  Water Resources Management: Principles, Regulations, and Cases , 1996 .

[37]  Robert R. Pierce,et al.  Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 1995 , 1998 .

[38]  Nancy D. Brannon.  Groundwater: A Community's Management of the Invaluable Resource Beneath its Feet , 2007 .

[39]  David Carle.  Introduction to Water in California , 2004 .