本文探讨了水资源保护在城市水资源规划研究中的作用，并调查了在电能规划领域进行的最低成本规划在多大程度上可以纳入水资源规划。本文的中心主题是，水资源分配政策决定，而不是传统的资源经济学，将决定什么是“成本效益”强调环境成本；作者讨论了纳入环境成本、确定可量化环境成本和效益的方法、水价等主题。本文给出了一些将保护纳入水资源最低成本规划的公用事业的案例研究。

This paper explores the role that water conservation plays in municipal water utility planning studies, and investigates the extent to which least-cost planning, as carried out in the electrical energy planning area, can be incorporated in water resource planning. The central theme herein is that water allocation policy decisions, and not traditional resource economics, will dictate what is "cost effective." Environmental costs are emphasized; the author discusses the topics of incorporating environmental costs, methodology for determining quantifiable environmental costs and benefits, the price of water, and so forth. A number of case studies are given of utilities that have incorporated conservation into least cost planning of water resources.