title: What Do Experienced Water Managers Think of Water Resources of Our Nation and Its Management Infrastructure?
abstract: This article represents the second report by an ASCE Task Committee "Infrastructure Impacts of Landscape-driven Weather Change" under the ASCE Watershed Management Technical Committee and the ASCE Hydroclimate Technical Committee. Herein, the 'infrastructure impacts" are referred to as infrastructure-sensitive changes in weather and climate patterns (extremes and non-extremes) that are modulated, among other factors, by changes in landscape, land use and land cover change. In this first report, the article argued for explicitly considering the well-established feedbacks triggered by infrastructure systems to the land-atmosphere system via landscape change. In this report by the ASCE Task Committee (TC), we present the results of this ASCE TC's survey of a cross section of experienced water managers using a set of carefully crafted questions. These questions covered water resources management, infrastructure resiliency and recommendations for inclusion in education and curriculum. We describe here the specifics of the survey and the results obtained in the form of statistical averages on the 'perception' of these managers. Finally, we discuss what these 'perception' averages may indicate to the ASCE TC and community as a whole for stewardship of the civil engineering profession. The survey and the responses gathered are not exhaustive nor do they represent the ASCE-endorsed viewpoint. However, the survey provides a critical first step to developing the framework of a research and education plan for ASCE. Given the Water Resources Reform and Development Act passed in 2014, we must now take into account the perceived concerns of the water management community.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, More Hall 201, Seattle, Washington, 98195, United States of America.
authors.forename: Faisal
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hossain
authors.affiliation: US Army Corps of Engineers, Institute of Water Resources, Seattle, Washington, 9815, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Arnold
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue Boston, Masschusetts, 02115, United States of America.
authors.forename: Ed
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Beighley
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 130 Natural Resources Road, Amherst, Massachusetts, 01003, United States of America.
authors.forename: Casey
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: University of Utah, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 110 Central Campus Drive, Ste 2044, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84112, United States of America.
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Burian
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering, Pokfulam Road, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Ji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: CREÄ Affiliates, 2319 N 45th Street, Seattle, Washington, 98103, United States of America.
authors.forename: Anindita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mitra
authors.affiliation: Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue University, 550 Stadium Mall Drive, West Lafayette, Indiana, 47907, United States of America.
authors.forename: Dev
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Niyogi
authors.affiliation: University of Colorado, CIRES, Boulder, Colorado, 80309-0216, United States of America.
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pielke
authors.affiliation: Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87185, United States of America.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Tidwell
authors.affiliation: U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC, United States of America.
authors.forename: Dave
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wegner
mesh_terms: D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D004738:Engineering; D005104:Expert Testimony; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D062066:Water Resources / Q000600:supply & distribution*