In the mid-eighties, several counties in the rapidly urbanizing area of Virginia developed a comprehensive land use plan for the Occoquan Reservoir watershed and adopted zoning ordinances regulating the location, type, and intensity of future land uses. This was done after maximizing the limits of treatment technology for the wastewater treatment plants discharging into the tributaries upstream of the reservoir and after intensive data collection and model development.
Fairfax County took the lead in working with basin partners to study different land use development scenarios and how well they met multiple objectives such as:
Depending on the sensitivity of land areas in meeting specific objectives, portions of the watershed were strategically upzoned and others downzoned.