Integrating water quality management & landuse planning in a watershed context

34 X. Wang
only to serve the community which adopt
the plan. In the United States, land-use
planning is implemented at local community
level (municipal or county) (Thomas and
Furuseth, 1997) and consequently non-local
interests are not considered equally in landuse
planning decision-making. For example,
typical land-use suitability and feasibility
analyses often are limited to the proposed
property and immediately surrounded areas.
Water-quality issue is usually not sufficiently
studied in land-use planning.
The impact of urban land uses on river
water quality demonstrated in this study
suggests that the known land–water relationship
is significant enough for planners
and decision-makers to pay proper attention
to water-quality issues in evaluating
plans and facilitating collaborations. Achieving
the sustainable management of water
and land resources could be a major consideration
in exploring planning alternatives
within a watershed. After realizing the
water-quality problems related to non-point
sources and the loss of aquatic habitat, the
US EPA has been promoting an ecologicalbased
watershed protection approach (WPA)
(Brady, 1996). The WPA delineates a geographic
area based on its natural characteristics—a
watershed—and the stakeholders
whose activities are on water or land within
the watershed are involved in defining problems,
set priorities, and implement solutions
(Davenport et al., 1996). The LMR study
shows that the WWTPs alone may not significantly
affect the water quality while the
combined affect from point sources (WWTPs,
TRIs, IFDs) and non-point sources (urban
land) can be reflected in the water-quality
data. At present, only point sources are regulated
by environmental agencies such as
OEPA in LMR watershed while non-point
sources are unregulated. This study result
shows that such management may not be
effective in water quality protection. The
finding reinforces the notion that management
of point and non-point sources should
be coordinated. Such effort involves all levels
of government, other agencies and stakeholders
in a structured and focused process
since a sustainable community is interconnected
with surrounding communities and
the sustainability of a larger region is supported
by the collaboration of these communities
(Thomas and Furuseth, 1997). Proper
land-use planning within a watershed can
protect water quality and reach economic
goals. Although watersheds are increasingly
viewed as appropriate natural spatial unit for
planning and for sustainable water resources
management, watersheds have not received
as much attention in land-use planning field
as that in the biological and environmental
studies. This may be attributed to the nature
of traditional planning practice. Watersheds
are often divided into areas that are under
different planning and political jurisdictions
and the coordination among them is often
minimal. With more studies demonstrating
that the effects of human activities can and
do cross political boundaries the development
and implementation of water-quality-based
watershed land-use plans should be viewed
as an integrated and holistic approach.
The LMR study demonstrates several evidences
that call for integration of waterquality
management and land-use planning
to aim at water uses in a manner that will
maximize the socio-economic benefits to the
society without jeopardizing the balance of
the resource-related ecosystems. Although
water chemistry in the LMR watershed was
at good condition, biotic indicators have
picked up the effect of human activities on
the water quality. Such effect is a combination
of point and non-point sources, which are
connected with land uses in the watershed,
and the riparian habitat quality. The relationship
between water quality of receiving
rivers and land uses in a watershed indicates
that increasing population pressure in
a watershed is resulting in increasing loads
of nutrients and other pollutants which may
cause severe degradation of water quality
and consequent use impairments of the water
bodies. The integration of water-quality management
and land-use planning can promote
protecting the biotic quality and habitat
health and preventing pollution from happening,
which serves the purpose of protecting
water quality and maintaining ecologically
and economically healthy land development.
The study also demonstrates that the river
biological integrity is strongly related to
the habitat health (Tables 4 and 5). This
linkage suggests that the goal of protecting
water quality through land-use planning
can and should be achieved through habitat
protection. Maintaining a healthy habitat can
help to improve water quality and promote