ABSTRACT
The City and County of Honolulu covers the entire island of Oahu and includes about 80 percent of the state’s roughly one million resident population. The institutional framework underlying water allocation has undergone radical alteration by judicial, legislative, and administrative upheavals. Groundwater provides nearly all the city’s water. Most of the conventionally available sources have been or soon will be fully exploited. The state and city are cooperating to construct and operate a demonstration desalination plant that will produce water at three or more times the current water quantity charge. The rise of sugar and expansion of taro cultivation in the mid-nine-teenth century, however, greatly increased the demand for water and brought conflict that traditional institutions could not accommodate. The new law establishes a State Water Resources Management Commission with planning and managerial functions. The commission designates a Water Management Area wherever water resources are threatened in quantity or quality.
