Revisiting Gilbert Whites 1971Strategies of American Water Management:A 21stCentury Natural Hazards Perspective

On his passing in October 2006, , the New York Times characterized Gilbert F. White as a geographer whose philosophy of accommodating nature instead of trying to master it had profound effects on policy and environmental thought. The headline labeled him an Expert on Floods and Nature. Perhaps, more than any other individual, Gilbert White, shaped the conscience of 20th century American water management. In 1934, as a new graduate, he moved from the University of Chicago to Washington with his mentor and department chair, Harlan Barrow, to work for the White House on natural resource planning as part of efforts to spur the economy. In 1942 he published his dissertation, Human Adjustment To Floods A Geographical Approach To The Flood Problem In The United States, which challenged the major efforts by the federal government launched in 1936 to control floods throughout the nation through structural means. In 1950, while president of Haverford University, he served as vice -chairman of a federal water policy commission established by President Harry Truman. The Commission, in its report, A Water Policy for the American People, found that, In short, if we do not manage and conserve water, we suffer losses, some of them irreparable, in our other natural resources. If we do not manage and conserve these other resources, we shall lose the usefulness of our water : it will rush to the sea, robbing instead of enriching us....A well-rounded national water resources policy to meet this need must be a broad reflection of the fives of the people on their farms, in their villages and cities, in their regions, and in the Nation as a whole. Civilizations are built on a combination of water, land, and people. When the combination ceases to be infused with a moral relationship between man and man, and man and nature, civilizations decline and give place to new combinations of these elementary values. In 1965, then chair of the Geography department at the University of Chicago , he was asked to lead a Bureau of the Budget task force to address the issue of growing flood losses even in the face of substantial federal efforts through structural means to limit these losses. The report of the Task Force, A Unified National Program for Managing Flood Losses, set the tone for the federal governments efforts to share the risk of flooding through a federal insurance program and floodplain management and reemphasized the need for a balanced approach to water resources development. Having been key player in the above study efforts and a consultant for many federal agencies, by the late 1960s, White concluded that ...it is becoming apparent that a change in orientation of public efforts in water management is needed...There is growing doubt that public aims of national efficiency, regional growth, and landscape preservation are being as well served as they might be. In 1969, he authored. Strategies of American Water Management to examine how people make their choices in managing water from place to place and time to time... and to ...aid in finding more suitable ends and means of manipulating the natural water system. In the book he described six of the major strategies that had been practiced in the United States and offered his view on where that might lead in the future. In the late 1980s , when the federal government began an assessment of floodplain management in the United States and the unified national program called for by the 1968 National Flood Insurance Program Act, the federal agencies more directly involved in the assessment invited critical appraisal by a group of persons outside of the federal government. A National Review Committee headed by White was selected to represent a wide variety of experience and outlook in the floodplain. In its most startling conclusion, the committee reported that ...the Unified National Program is neither unified nor national. In 1993, major flooding in the Mississippi River basin brought national attention once again on the impacts of significant flood events on our inability to deal with them. Whites 1993 call in Environment for sounder flood policy and the release in 1994 of a White House report on the flood, Sharing the Challenge which offered new policy approaches, forecast new directions for American water management in the 21st-century. Since then, losses from floods have continued to rise and the world has come to recognize the significant challenges that are occurring because of climate change. It is appropriate therefore, to ask if Gilbert White were here today how might he look on a 2ist Century Strategies of American Water Management. What would Gilbert say and how well are we prepared to act on what he might have said were he here. This lecture will address the options that exist for the nation to deal with American Water Management and offer an opinion on the direction the nations strategy might take is it moves through the next, certain to be turbulent, decades.