From Planning to Action: Advancing Sustainable Water Resources Management in the Potomac Basin

ABSTRACT The Potomac River basin, a critical source of drinking water and home to the U.S. capital, provides a case study in sustainable water resources management. This paper traces the history of planning in the basin, examines the opportunities and challenges of water resources management in a complex, multi‐jurisdictional setting, and analyzes the integrated, adaptive process used to develop and implement the Potomac Basin Comprehensive Water Resources Plan. Using a review of planning documents and stakeholder engagement outcomes, the analysis identifies key mechanisms through which adaptive, collaborative planning is operationalized across four analytic dimensions: stakeholder engagement, facilitation, plan components, and planning process. The Potomac case demonstrates how integrative principles can be implemented pragmatically through voluntary, science‐based, and locally grounded collaboration—rather than applying Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) as a formal or prescriptive framework. The findings highlight how institutional capacity, iterative learning, and cross‐jurisdictional coordination enable basin‐scale planning to evolve over time. Unlike previous Potomac scientific and planning reports, this paper offers a systematic, reflective analysis of the long‐term planning process in the Potomac basin, providing empirically grounded insights and a conceptual framework for others pursuing integrated, sustainable water resources management.