5 specific actions YOU can take:

1. Conduct a workshop of your colleagues on your city council or board of supervisors to educate them and your key staff on these principles and techniques.
   
   
2. Require that any land use decisions be evaluated for their effects on your water resources.
   
   
3. Get your city or county to begin work on including a water element in your general plan, or at least include a comprehensive plan for water in another element such as the conservation element. Include watershed groups, water suppliers, wastewater agencies, flood control agencies, water users, non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders in the process.
   
   
4. Meet with other political subdivisions in your watershed to discuss opportunities and challenges, and forge partnerships.
   
   
5. Support efforts to have other jurisdictions throughout California also include water elements in their general plans.

What your city or county can do:

First recognize that your land use decisions significantly affect your water resources. And your water resources should affect your land use decisions.

Identify and assess priority water, land, open space and cultural resource areas within your watershed. Protection and maintenance of these important features should be key considerations informing local land use decisions. Encourage adjacent communities to collaborate on such efforts within their watersheds. Support coordination with other local governments, applicable resources agencies and stakeholders in the surrounding areas.

• inventory natural resources
• prioritize areas for protection

Formulate an Action Plan based on the comparison of priority resources areas to developable lands remaining in each watershed.

• target development to most appropriate areas
• incorporate open space planning

Incorporate these Action Plans into the appropriate community or county general plan for implementation

• develop a plan of action both on the local and watershed level
• revise General Plan and zoning and subdivision regulations to support plans

Principles for conserving and protecting water resources in your community:

• Design with nature — not against it. Protect areas that provide important water quality, flood control and water supply benefits, areas necessary to maintain riparian and aquatic biota, preserving and protecting riparian corridors, wetlands, and buffer zones; groundwater recharge areas; and/or areas that are susceptible to erosion and sediment loss.
  
  
• Ensure that development is sited and designed to preserve the infiltration, purification, and retention functions of natural drainage systems that exist on each site. Ensure that new development minimizes the creation of impervious surfaces, especially directly connected impervious areas, and that, where feasible, redevelopment increases the area of pervious surfaces.
  
  
• Ensure that development is designed and managed to minimize the volume and velocity of runoff (including both stormwater and dry weather runoff) to avoid excessive erosion and sedimentation.
  
  
• Ensure that development minimizes the introduction of pollutants into all waters (including the ocean, estuaries, wetlands, rivers, and lakes). Ensure the inclusion of appropriate site design and source control Best Management Practices (BMPs) in all developments.
  
  
• Design and plan buildings, landscapes, and communities to capture rainwater, utilize water efficiently, re-use water and minimize environmental impacts. Support the use of efficient irrigation practices in all landscaped areas and promote the use of native or drought-tolerant non-invasive plants to minimize the need for fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, and excessive irrigation. Promote aggressive water conservation measures in all new and redevelopment projects.

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