The study has traced the water resources planning experience for the metropolitan Boston area from the 17th century to the present in order to investigate how current planning has evolved from seeking large capital intuitive structural solutions to potential water supply (source) shortfalls to more recently favoring less mostly non-structural solutions. The study found that the introduction of citizen participation into the planning process was central to this change. The drought of the 1960s precipitated a debate between the operators of the metropolitan Boston water system and interested citizens and citizens' groups, who were opposed to a structural solution to a perceived supply shortfall. Today, the managers of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority/Metropolitan District Commission Water System employ a managerial approach called Trigger Planning. Trigger Planning involves systematically monitoring supply and demand while both undertaking the necessary actions to avoid a supply shortfall such as demand management and preparing to undertake structural solutions if they become necessary. Trigger Planning is the subject of a separate study.