The water resources of the Savannah River Basin play a critical role in the region, so changes in how water is managed are essential to ensure a sound future, say scientists and policy makers.

“The growth of our cities, economic development and the quality of life depend on our supply of abundant, clean and affordable water,” said Gene Eidson, director for restoration ecology at Clemson University’s Restoration Institute, to a gathering of scientists and water resource specialists Thursday at Clemson University’s Hendrix Center.

Mr. Eidson’s remarks opened the forum on water resource conservation and management that drew nearly 100 experts from across South Carolina and Georgia. One key focus of the conference was how South Carolina handles water resources and how it shares with other states.

South Carolina, for instance, is likely headed for a lawsuit against North Carolina over that state’s transfer of water from the Catawba River, Dean Moss of the Governor’s Water Law Review Team told the forum.

“No one can say there hasn’t been talk, but now it looks headed for the (U.S.) Supreme Court,” he said.

North Carolina’s plans call for the removal of 36 million gallons per day from the Catawba basin. South Carolina officials have contended the move puts at risk the Santee River basin that the Catawba feeds, endangering the drinking water supplies of the Low Country as well as wildlife and recreation.

The office of Attorney General Henry McMaster has indicated that a lawsuit could be filed within a matter of days. That skirmish on the northern border makes state officials sensitive about the Savannah River Basin, which is shared with Georgia.

The growth of urban Atlanta, which has a higher population than South Carolina, is a major concern, and cooperative management with Georgia of the water resources will be critical to avoid a water war in the Savannah basin, according to Jeff Allen, of the Strom Thurmond Institute’s Water Resources Center.

“A source of water for Atlanta in the future is likely to be the Savannah River,” Mr. Allen said. “And preparations have to be made for that possibility.”

Atlanta currently draws more than 450 million gallons per day from the Chattahoochee River, with slim reserves in two nearby lakes, but Georgia officials have judged Atlanta’s resources inadequate to meet the metropolitan area’s runaway growth that has seen a population increase of nearly 1 million over the past five years.

Better management of water will also require changes in how South Carolina handles water within its borders, said Mr. Moss of the water law task force.

“Now, South Carolina is a riparian rights state,” he said. “You live next to a river, you have a right to use it. If you don’t live on a river, you have no inherent riparian rights.”

Mr. Moss described this as “a weakness in our law” and said his task force had recommended a change to “regulated riparian rights,” which would essentially create an allocation system.

One key question, he said, was whether ownership of watershed lands and related property conferred ownership of water or whether it was held by the state. It was an issue he said he expects to be litigated at some point.

Another step in this direction was to establish a permitting process for tapping surface water supplies, Mr. Moss said. North Carolina and Georgia already had such permitting, he said, but South Carolina did not. But a bill currently in the legislature would establish permitting.

Cooperation between the states as well as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will also promote the river’s overall health, according to Jeff Larsen, Savannah River Watershed Manager for the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.

Agreements on allowable discharges of potential pollutants and total downstream flow will keep pollutant levels within limits and dissolved oxygen contents higher in the downstream areas that see more industrial usage, he said.

South Carolina is not in real danger of running out of water, according to Bud Badr, chief hydrologist with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, but better management is essential to ensure that.

The state currently needs a volume equal to 5 inches of water spread over the entire surface area of the state, Mr. Badr said, and from all sources South Carolina now gets a volume equal to 48 inches, or which about 21 inches are retained.

“So we have four to five times what we need, not always where we need it,” he said. “But could we run out if it wasn’t well managed? Yes.”