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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until August 25, 2025

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Source Water Protection Planning in Ohio: Assessing the Integration of Land Use Planning and Water Management for Safe and Sustainable Public Drinking Water Sources

Wilson, Jessica P
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1593616149140822

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, City and Regional Planning.
In the U.S, amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1996 established requirements for states to administer source water protection (SWP) for public drinking water systems. Under direction from state-level agencies and water industry organizations, public water systems create protection plans for drinking water sources. Public water systems are tasked with ensuring clean, safe, and sustainable drinking water. Protection and management efforts by public water systems to reduce the risk of drinking water contamination rely on local land use-based policies and interventions (regulatory and non-regulatory) before the treatment process; yet drinking water protection programs have received less attention in the field of planning. At the same time, updates to the American Planning Association’s Policy Guide on Water (2016) called for an integrated approach to land use planning and water management. This reframing to acknowledge a land-water nexus faces challenges in both research and practice; however, barriers exist in collaboration and decision-making across jurisdictions for shared resources and in creating institutions that support the integration of historically separate planning and management sectors and activities. Literature suggests that such an approach to integrated resource management requires effective governance. Thus, I argue that local SWP and related programs present an opportunity to examine integration in practice, with a focus on governance and local resource management. Drawing from collaborative planning, governance, and integrated water resources management literatures, as well as survey results from a study of SWP planning across the Upper Midwest, I assessed five SWP plans/programs in Ohio. Using a multiple-case study design to structure my analyses, I focused on SWP plans/programs for three groundwater and two surface water systems in Ohio. Document analysis and semi-structured interviews were conducted with public water system representatives for each case, as well as planners, zoning managers, and other relevant actors involved in SWP planning and management. For each case, I analyzed if and how the five plans/programs incorporated elements of integrated land and water management for drinking water protection. While source water protection in Ohio is administered by a single state agency (Ohio Environmental Protection Agency) under the direction of the Safe Drinking Water Act, I found variation among protection plan implementation efforts, collaborative structures for protection, and scope. Two themes emerged in the comparison of the cases: the importance of boundary spanners for SWP efforts and framing the role and scale of SWP varied across cases and sectors. The results also address how practitioners measure success, and governance challenges to drinking water protection as found in the five cases. The elements examined in the five cases also suggest that moving from creating a protection plan to moving toward implementing a protection program involves continued inter-governmental and cross-sector collaboration, as well as sustained capacity to institutionalize SWP. Drinking water protection, as illustrated through these cases, provides an established mechanism for organizing and supporting an integrated approach to land and water management.
Maria Conroy (Advisor)
Mattijs Van Maasakkers (Committee Member)
Kendra McSweeney (Committee Member)
279 p.
Urban Planning
source water protection, land use planning, water resource management, drinking water, collaborative planning

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wilson, J. P. (2020). Source Water Protection Planning in Ohio: Assessing the Integration of Land Use Planning and Water Management for Safe and Sustainable Public Drinking Water Sources [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1593616149140822

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wilson, Jessica. Source Water Protection Planning in Ohio: Assessing the Integration of Land Use Planning and Water Management for Safe and Sustainable Public Drinking Water Sources. 2020. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1593616149140822.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wilson, Jessica. "Source Water Protection Planning in Ohio: Assessing the Integration of Land Use Planning and Water Management for Safe and Sustainable Public Drinking Water Sources." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1593616149140822

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.