WSP09398

• File Number: 8507
• Description: Rio Grande Project
• State: CO
• Basin: Rio Grande
• Date: 7/1/1997
• Title: Water Management Study: Upper Rio Grande Basin part 3
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

An Overview of the Basin's Resource-Management Problems

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such as agricultural and primary manufacturing, that once dictated the
economic fortunes throughout the land and the ascending importance of
other factors, such as quality oflife and the skill level of the workforce. Far
less is known about how these changes operate within individual
communities and states. Thus, economists can say with certainty that there
are tradeoffs between, say, withdrawing water from the river to irrigate
crops and leaving the water in the stream to provide recreational
opportunities and aesthetic benefits, but they cannot specifY those tradeoffs
precisely.

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Viewing the problems of resource management in terms of stewardship
provides some insight into the importance of the economic uncertainties and
their interaction with the hydrological and ecological uncertainties.
Resource stewardship entails managing resources so as to best fulfill the
owners' objectives. In the past there were fewer owners and their slate of
objectives was simpler than today's. Today's owners reside not just on farms
or in towns near the Basin's rivers and streams, but in major metropolitan
areas and, in some respects, throughout the U.S. The objectives of today are
not just to increase the supply of water for crops and drinking water,
although some strongly have these as their primary aim, but also include
maximizing the value, standard ofliving, and faimess that all Americans
derive from the ecosystem.

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The growth in interested owners and the changing complexity of their
objectives inevitably produce two frequent criticisms of current resource
management. Those with new objectives often complain that the private
parties and public institutions in charge focus too much on the current
generation and on short-term benefits; and those favoring the old objectives
often complain that the newcomers are sticking their noses where they have
no business and that the institutions are being inappropriately side-tracked
from their historical mission. The disagreement among these two viewpoints
is real and will persist. The disagreement is made more intense, however, by
the absence of a good understanding about who will gain and who will lose
under different resource-management scenarios. AB long as the tradeoffs
remain poorly understood, the different parties contesting for resources will
have strong incentives to promote their interests on ideological, not
empirical, terms.

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