Indiana has plenty of water, but needs new concepts for water distribution. This is the conclusion of a water study that began ten years ago.

Bloomington-based INTERA Incorporated was commissioned by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce in 2014 to study the state’s total water resources, their locations and how to best distribute them given Indiana’s diverse landscape.

“Every one of these ideas has been tried,” says Jack Wittman, project leader, vice president and senior water resources hydrologist at INTERA. “How do we look at regions? How do we assess water availability? We didn’t have a method before, but now at least there are methods to say how much we think is available.”

In addition, INTERA also broke down water usage for large parts of the Hoosier State.

North of the Wabash River, every community, manufacturer and irrigator has access to its own groundwater or stream. In central Indiana, water sources are not as plentiful. Water in central Indiana must be well managed, INTERA says, to ensure it meets demand. This requires using reservoirs, rivers and wells.

In southern Indiana, the study found, regional water systems such as Patoka Lake, Monroe Lake and Brookville Reservoir have served as primary water sources since the 1960s.

With this information, Wittman argues, it is now up to legislators and local community leaders to lay the groundwork for the future of water management and treatment in Indiana: “We need to think about how future demand might be distributed and what that will look like, whether it’s organic growth from the cities or whether we’re actually building megaprojects in certain areas. In any case, we need to understand what impact high water demand might have in different basins.”​