To arrive at truly integrated water management no aspect has been more difficult than the joint evaluation of social and environmental consequences. For example, not until 2000 was there a systematic examination of methods to evaluate the social benefits of flood protection projects along with the social costs of altering the floodplain environment through such management.

This book reflects our attempt to canvass the need and suitable methods for carefully combining the two. It seeks to appraise the range of problems and the available methods of addressing them in the broader context of integrated management. It does not attempt to describe all relevant efforts from around the world but it does seek to evaluate some representative examples of problems and of constructive methods of addressing them.

The idea for this book initially emerged in the mid 1980s after a period of intense conflict between proponents of continued water development and activists for environmental protection. Although considerable progress had occurred in water resource systems modeling and environmental science and policy, they seemed to develop to a significant degree along separate lines. One of the more extreme cases was the parallel development of water laws related to supply and of environmental laws that dealt with water quality: in some countries and states these integrally related topics are administered by different agencies in different ministries and with different bodies of law.