**2. Method and approach**

Our approach is four-fold. We: 1) analyze the hydrological and political factors influencing water decisions; 2) compare these cities' water policy histories; 3) examine their current collaborative challenges; and, 4) draw out their most important similarities and their lessons for other cities. For Los Angeles, we focus chiefly upon the Owens River with briefer discussion of newer (i.e., mid 20th Century) issues, including the *State Water Project* which diverts water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin - Bay Delta, and the Colorado River

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Urban-related water stressors can be more precisely de-constructed as three-fold problems. First, large cities generate huge volumes of wastewater which are costly to treat and, if left untreated, can contaminate local wells and streams. Second, the *spatial* "footprint" caused by sprawling horizontal urban development and annexation imposes numerous water-related problems, including paving of city streets and commercial districts (contributing to pollutant runoff and diminished groundwater recharge), and consumption of water for parks and outdoor residential use (increasing evapo-transpiration and taxing local supplies). Third, while greater concentration of people in cities may lower unit costs for many forms of water infrastructure (Satterthwaite, 2000) the need to expand water supply and treatment networks over vast distances increases the likelihood of distribution system leaks and other failures. All these problems have been observed in a number of Third World megacities, and underscore how urbanization exacerbates climate change impacts on scarce water supplies; imposes extraordinary pressures on surrounding regions; and, outraces infrastructural capacity (UN, 2009: 32; Adekalu, et. al., 2002; Downs, Mazari-Hiriart, Dominguez-Mora, & Suffet, 2000; Gandy, 2008; Tortajada and Casteian, 2003; Yusuf, 2007; and Zérah, 2008).

**3.1 Hydrology and Geography as prologue – A Los Angeles and New York overview**  So, what can the experiences of Los Angeles and New York teach us about water stress and large cities? Conventional wisdom might suggest that being located in highly-developed societies both are far better in managing water supply and quality than their counterparts in less-developed nations. In reality, however, their longer-standing experience as large urban conurbations makes them instructive cases for other megacities. This is so for three reasons. First, early in their histories, both cities faced many of the same challenges to public health and wastewater management that their Third World counterparts face today. These challenges included confronting the role foul and unhealthful water plays in the spread of infectious disease (a particular problem for New York City which, in 1832, suffered a severe cholera epidemic attributed to contaminated drinking water, Koeppel, 2000, 2001; American Museum of Natural History, 2011). Another includes the need to take decisive, yet adaptable, action to upgrade public works in order to provide residents with abundant water, and determining whether satisfying the need for safe, secure, and dependable supplies was best left to the "efficiencies" provided by private sector investment, or better suited to management by governmental entities. Los Angeles and New York confronted this latter challenge early in their histories, as we will see (Glaeser, 2011: 99; Mulholland, 2002). To a large extent both challenges drove these cities to divert water from outlying regions.

Second, in diverting water from outlying hinterlands, Los Angeles and New York generated well-documented, but vastly different, environmental and social impacts upon these adjacent regions. In the case of Los Angeles, diversion of water imposed reductions of both in-stream flow and groundwater in Owens Valley. These reductions, in turn, degraded local fisheries and wildlife habitat (McQuilkin, 2011), while acquisition of adjacent lands overlying aquifers deprived Owens Valley communities of the ability to pursue real estate

For its part, by acquiring much of the open space surrounding its reservoirs in the Catskill and Croton watersheds, a positive economic outcome generated by New York City was retention of low-density residential development that preserved the region's rural character

development for commercial and residential use (VanderBrug, 2009).

Aqueduct, completed in 1940. While the Owens Valley case revolves around a powerful, growing city initially diverting water from a modest agrarian region in order to support future growth, and then restoring a portion of that region's water under federal order, the latter cases revolve around endangered species protection and climate variability, respectively, as factors that compel change in urban water policy.

For New York City, the chief focus of our discussion is the Croton and Catskill watersheds the former is the city's original regional water source, dating to the 1840s, while the second was developed in the late 19th Century. In more recent years, both watersheds have been part of the so-called *New York City Watershed Protection Plan* designed to protect the city's water supply from sewage and runoff-induced contamination through adopting cooperative land use controls and other measures. These watersheds are the source of fully one-half of the city's water supply. Additional case material from the Delaware River, an interstate stream which New York relies upon for the other half of its water supply, is also discussed.

Section 3 sets the stage for comparison by first considering two vital questions: 1) how do megacities affect water supply and quality in their nested regions; and, 2) why are Los Angeles and New York good cases for studying these issues? Despite being located in a highly-developed society, and perceived as having safe, well-managed water systems, this was not always the case. Beyond this, as we shall see, Los Angeles and New York share important challenges with regards to infrastructure, the need to conserve water, and climate change which may translate into lessons for other megacities facing similar problems.
