Participation is now widely touted as an essential component of development. While there is still
a great deal of attention to the physical infrastructure in development, everything from planning to
implementation of physical projects is carried out with some level of meetings and discussion with local
citizens. This is particularly the case in projects that involve the management of resources—such as
water—over the long term. Citizens, after all, will still be there after the engineers, scientists, agency
managers and academics have moved on to new projects (see, for instance, the paper by Thomas
Davenport, presented at the Soil and Water Conservation Society Conference, Watershed Management
Fact or Fiction, March 27-29, 2000, La Crosse, Wisconsin). Their comprehension and support of the
project will maintain the work done to protect the resource, or not.