Groundwater Management Action Plan - implementation. Planning Review for Groundwater Protection Policies - wider considerations.

Abstract

A review of groundwater issues from a planning perspective was carried out in order to integrate land use planning with ground water protection and sustainable use. This review is based upon an analysis of existing literature on planning in developing countries, the sustainable management of groundwater resources and upon case-study material supplied by the British Geological Survey. The Planning Checklist and Assessment Matrix tools described elsewhere (R7134M.pdf) are derived from this report.

The review uses the experience of the two project case-study cities of Bishkek

and Narayanganj to illustrate how aquifer protection policies can be meshed into pragmatic planning tools suitable for use in other developing world cities similarly dependent on groundwater for public and private domestic, industrial and commercial water supply.

This report reviews existing practice in developing countries and relates well established planning procedures such as zonal planning and development control decision making to the need to consider groundwater as a pivotal element of a city's environmental capacity. From that starting point, and the need for an integrated approach to environmental policy, it has been argued that planning decision making, for both forward policy making and development control, can be based upon a risk assessment process that makes use of the suitable for use approach to planning. The suitable for use approach is considered to be pragmatic, flexible and in placing groundwater

protection as the starting point for land use considerations, provides an appropriate tool for more sustainable management of groundwater resources.

Citation

Groundwater Management Action Plan - implementation. Planning Review for Groundwater Protection Policies - wider considerations.

Published 1 January 2001