Premium
Common Sense in Ground‐Water Protection and Management in the United States
Author(s) -
LeGrand Harry E.,
Rosen Lars
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
groundwater
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.84
H-Index - 94
eISSN - 1745-6584
pISSN - 0017-467X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6584.1992.tb01569.x
Subject(s) - hydrogeology , bureaucracy , neglect , risk analysis (engineering) , common ground , computer science , environmental planning , management science , engineering , business , environmental science , political science , medicine , geotechnical engineering , nursing , politics , law , communication , sociology
Interests in the development and protection of ground water have had unbalanced thrusts through the years, focusing on special types of problems that arise at a particular time. Massive funding and excessively rigid rules guided by bureaucratic procedures have resulted in excessive effort in some activities and neglect in others. Of special importance are the needs for optimal use of existing experience and data and for strengthening the hydrogeologic experience at policy and regulatory levels. At hand are (1) great piles of hydrogeologic data, some unneeded, (2) widely varying background knowledge and varying experience of workers, and (3) types and ranges of uncertainties. To make optimal use of available data and knowledge, to handle uncertainties, and to properly integrate the hydrogeologic conditions with other factors, there should be risk‐based approaches in a decision analysis framework. Better balanced efforts toward future ground‐water protection and management can be realized by incorporating features of the suggested framework approach.