Integrated Resource Planning: Where Land Meets Water

Certification Maintenance

Course Details

Pick up a range of perspectives and tools, including foundational context, local examples, and strategies using various planning frameworks, to advance the integration of land and water planning. Presenters bring a wealth of experience at multiple planning scales and contexts, both governmental and nongovernmental. Panelists include:

• A water resources manager for Ipswich Utilities in Massachusetts who leads conservation initiatives, secures public funding, and builds community trust through collaborative outreach;

• A senior attorney at the Environmental Law Institute who shares the results of research examining and evaluating requirements in state law for coordinating water utility planning and land use planning in each of the 50 states. The original work fed into the Babbitt Center’s 2021 report, “Integrating Land Use and Water Management: Planning and Practice” that was recently updated and expanded; and

• The U.S. EPA’s national lead for healthy watersheds protection and watershed-based planning who shares national perspectives on opportunities for advancing integrated land and water planning through several water planning frameworks, including nonpoint source watershed-based plans, source water protection plans, and integrated municipal and wastewater plans.

 

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the national landscape of state planning regulations pertaining to the integration of water management in land use plans.
• Identify how land use planning can include water planning frameworks (e.g. watershed-based plans, source water protection plans, and integrated municipal stormwater) to meet community water management needs.
• Understand which states require a mandatory water element in local master plans, and what the water element should address to protect water supply and natural resources.