ABSTRACT
In a real sense the progenitor of the 1972 land and water management legislation that marked Florida's first attempt to cope broadly with its land crisis was the severe south Florida drought of 1971. This drought, however, was but the latest in what seemed a cyclical series that had begun in the early 1940s. The recurrent droughts ultimately were to give rise to increasing speculation that south Florida was going to "run out of water" and that the growth of its population and economy would be limited because of it. Therefore, the story of how the new land and water management laws came to be enacted begins not in 1971 or '72 but much earlier.
