It's encouraging to see real progress being made in a process as critical to our O'ahu's future as water resource planning.

Honolulu's Board of Water Supply is doing commendable work in drawing up a watershed management plan for the Ko'olauloa district. Granted, the effort is mandated as a component of the city's latest "sustainable development" blueprint, but the water board is paying much more than lip service to the mission.

For starters, its managers and consultants have hosted a series of meetings with Windward Coast residents, people who have witnessed the effects of development on water and who know how easily resources can be threatened. The board already seems to be wisely adopting a community goal: keeping enough water available to the Windward side to sustain its systems.

What's even more crucial to the emergence of a useful plan is that the board is viewing the interconnectedness of land use with water resources. In past decades, officials reviewing development took a narrower view of a project and its toll on water supplies.

The board is considering, for instance, the importance of a healthy forest in capturing rainfall and recharging the aquifer. Engineers now have hydrological data that is more precise, of course, but they're also armed with a new policy that's clearly more enlightened.

Considering the combative atmosphere during the Waiahole water standoff of the previous decade, the current approach seems far more rational and likely to produce a guide that works.

Other counties, bound to draw up their own plans, should take note.