Water Resources Planning in Appalachia

The Appalachian Water Resource Survey formulates and applies an innovative planning process and evaluation procedure for developing water resource proposals which reflect in their accounts the associated economic expansion of the area in which they are to be located. In addition to measuring traditional user benefits and project costs, expansion benefits and costs are identified including income and employment expansion, induced investment, and their associated costs. Furthermore, these are allocated to regional and national accounts permitting the isolation of a project’s impact on regional economic stimulation and economic growth. Projects are evaluated both in terms of the traditional benefit-cost ratio and a ratio which relates the change in total wage and salary flows accruing to the Region, to total project costs including those private and public costs which are induced and associated. This process is a response to the need for developing water resources in consonance with a comprehensive regional development program. The resultant plan’s frailties should not be permitted to overshadow the valid methodological advances pioneered in this study.