Closing the circle: linking land use planning and water management at the local level

The concepts of integrated and sustainable management have been discussed in detail in resource management literature, but there has been less attention to practical ways to implement and evaluate the success of these concepts at the local level. Use of a normative model, based on key principles, evaluative questions and benchmark criteria, provides a practical and adaptable tool for the implementation and evaluation of integrated and sustainable management. This paper illustrates a method by which land use planning and water management activities may be evaluated through the development of a normative model, and discusses lessons learned from an application of the model to three study municipalities in the Province of Ontario, Canada.