Did you know that a major nongovernmental water organization (NGO) is located in our midst?

That's right, the American Water Resources Association (AWRA) has its national headquarters in Middleburg. I've written about AWRA before but to refresh your memory, it is an organization whose mission is to advance multidisciplinary water resources education, management, and research. To do this, AWRA publishes a refereed journal, a magazine, and operates three or more water resources conferences nationally and occasionally internationally each year. AWRA members represent the private sector, colleges and universities, and all levels of government.

Major concerns to AWRA, to all of us in the water business, and to the public are floods and drought. The AWRA Board of Directors recently adopted a position statement on floods and drought that should heighten awareness of everyone in the country to these damaging events. The purpose of this article is to summarize the statement.

AWRA Recommends that all communities and their governing bodies prepare themselves for these events. Obviously, floods happen rapidly following intense storm events while drought is insidious, and the problems they cause are quite different. Nevertheless, careful planning can mitigate the impacts of both.

AWRA's position statement recognizes that floods and drought occur at significant cost to society and recommends four ways that communities can better prepare themselves. These include information gathering, communication and education, partnerships, and resiliency in community planning.

Regarding the collection of information, the statement suggests examining carefully the history of past events, to help determine how changes in upstream land use and land cover may impact the location, strength, and duration of future flood or drought events. Some of the questions to be addressed include what data are needed to make these determinations and how may this data be obtained? What extremes may be anticipated based on the best available data from climate science? What were the economic, social, and environmental impacts of past events on the community and can scenarios be developed for these impacts for future events?

Regarding communication and education, AWRA suggests education on drought and flood risk at community schools, and that financial institutions engage stakeholders as to risk and incentives. First responders and emergency managers should receive simulation training, and it should be made clear to the public exactly how information would be communicated during an event.

The establishment of partnerships before drought or flood events is very advantageous when an event occurs. An example is a coordination between public entities and researchers to process gathered information and disseminate it promptly to the public. Partnerships between such groups also are necessary during mitigation, response, and recovery.

Finally, resiliency in planning is important to assure that alternative sources of fresh water and water treatment, if necessary, are available promptly and that regional support is available for small communities. Innovation in adopting and implementing policies, procedures, regulation, and zoning that are flexible but that protect health, social systems, economic and other systems following an event are highly recommended. Many communities have flood and drought plans in place, but many do not, and some plans likely need updating. I applaud AWRA for developing this position statement. It should be required reading for elected, management, and emergency officials across our nation.