I did a Subject Heading search for 'water resources', hoping that Library of Congress might know that term, and got 283 Headings, broken down by geography ('Water resources development California', etc.). Here's the 7 for 'Water resources development Virginia' (there are many others for various Virginia counties):
Record 1 of 7 TITLE The Maury and its headwaters, the Calfpasture : a scenic river report to the Governor and General Assembly : an element of the Virginia Outdoors Plan / [Commission of Outdoor Recreation] IMPRINT [Richmond] : The Commission, 1972. CALL NO. GB991.V5 V53 1972. Record 2 of 7 AUTHOR Virginia. State Water Control Board. TITLE Progress report - State Water Control Board, Commonwealth of Virginia. IMPRINT Richmond, Commonwealth of Virginia, State Water Control Board. CALL NO. TD224.V8 V58a. Record 3 of 7 AUTHOR Virginia. State Water Control Board. TITLE Small coastal river basins and Chesapeake Bay comprehensive water resources plan. CONTENTS --v.2. Economic base study.--v.3. Hydrologic analysis.--v.4. Water resource requirements and problems.--Phase I addendum, state river basin water quality plan. Record 4 of 7 TITLE Virginia's water resources : policy and management issues / William E. Cox ... [et al.] IMPRINT Blacksburg, Va. : Depts. of Agricultural Economics and Civil Engineering, Virginia Tech., 1981. Record 5 of 7 AUTHOR Sevebeck, Kathryn P. TITLE Virginia's waters / by Kathryn P. Sevebeck, Jacob H. Kahn and Nancy L. Chapman. IMPRINT Blacksburg, Virginia : Virginia Water Resources Research Center, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, [1986] CALL NO. TD224.V8 S38. Record 6 of 7 TITLE Waste management and water resources : a problem that can't be swept under the rug. IMPRINT Blacksburg, Va. : Virginia Water Resources Center, [1989] Record 7 of 7 AUTHOR Virginia State Soil Conservation Committee. TITLE Water resources of Virginia; progress report. IMPRINT [Blacksburg, 1959] CALL NO. HD1694.V8 A55 1959.
So somewhere between the generality that produced 3054 for 'water resources' as a keyword and the specificity that found 7 for "Water resources development Virginia" is the subject matter we're looking for. If I LIMIT the keyword 'water resources' to the Science Library I get 246 --not too many to look through more closely. Annie persents them chronologically. I looked through the set and grabbed a few that look like they might be interesting to look at and might help me understand the outlines of the general problems of water resources. Here's a dozen:
Record 1 of 12 AUTHOR De Villiers, Marq. TITLE Water : the fate of our most precious resource / Marq de Villiers. IMPRINT Boston, MA : Houghton Mifflin, 2000. CALL NO. TD345 .D473 2000. Record 2 of 12 AUTHOR Schneiders, Robert Kelley, 1965- TITLE Unruly river : two centuries of change along the Missouri / Robert Kelley Schneiders. IMPRINT Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, c1999. CALL NO. GE155.M85 S36 1999. Record 3 of 12 AUTHOR Thompson, Stephen Andrew. TITLE Water use, management, and planning in the United States / Stephen A. Thompson. IMPRINT San Diego : Academic, c1999. CALL NO. TD223 .T527 1999. Record 4 of 12 TITLE The impact of climate change on the United States economy / edited by Robert Mendelsohn, James E. Neumann. IMPRINT Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1999. CALL NO. QC981.8.C5 I449 1999. Record 5 of 12 AUTHOR Reuss, Martin, 1945- TITLE Designing the bayous : the control of water in the Atchafalaya Basin : 1800-1995 / by Martin Reuss. IMPRINT Alexandria, Va. : Office of History, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1998. CALL NO. TC424.L8 R48 1998. Record 6 of 12 AUTHOR Whipple, William, 1909- TITLE Water resources : a new era for coordination / William Whipple, Jr. IMPRINT Reston, Va. : ASCE Press, c1998. CALL NO. TC405 .W58 1998. Record 7 of 12 TITLE The world's water : the biennial report on freshwater resources. IMPRINT Washington, D.C. : Island Press, c1998- CALL NO. TD345 .W674. Record 8 of 12 TITLE Encyclopedia of hydrology and water resources / edited by Reginald W. Herschy and Rhodes W. Fairbridge. IMPRINT Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic, 1998. CONTENTS Selected international journals in hydrology and water resources (p. [xx]-xxi) -- Units, symbols and conversion factors (p. [xxii]-xxvii) CALL NO. GB655 .E53 1998. Record 9 of 12 TITLE Applied climatology : principles and practice / edited by Russell D. Thompson and Allen Perry. IMPRINT London ; New York : Routledge, 1997. CALL NO. QC981 .T48 1997. Record 10 of 12 AUTHOR United States. Bureau of Reclamation. TITLE Ground water manual : a guide for the investigation, development, and management of ground-water resources. IMPRINT [Washington, D.C.?] : U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation : For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O., 1995. CALL NO. TD403 .U54 1995. Record 11 of 12 AUTHOR Shallat, Todd A. TITLE Structures in the stream : water, science, and the rise of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers / by Todd Shallat. IMPRINT Austin : University of Texas Press, 1994. CALL NO. TC423 .S49 1994. Record 12 of 12 AUTHOR Van der Leeden, Frits. TITLE Water atlas of Virginia : basic facts about Virginia's water resources / by Frits van der Leeden. IMPRINT Lexington, Va. : Tennyson Press, 1993. CALL NO. FOLIO TD224.V6 V2 1993.
One of them has a hyperlink to a data resource: The World's Water: the biennial report on fresh water resources ("a site dedicated to providing up-to-date water information and data and web connections to organizations, institutions, and individuals working on a wide range of global freshwater problems and solutions.")
So we have some interesting possibilities for serendipitous exploration in our book resources, and you'll note that many recent records in Annie also have Tables of Contents.