The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed to a 15-year term by the U.S. President. The GAO wants to support Congress, while at the same time doing right by the citizens of the United States. They audit, investigate, perform analyses, issue legal decisions and report anything that the government is doing. This is one of their reports.

This set of proceedings is based on the International Conference on Advances in Building Technology in Hong Kong on 4-6 December 2002. The two volumes of proceedings contain 9 invited keynote papers, 72 papers delivered by 11 teams , and 133 contributed papers from over 20 countries around the world. The papers cover a wide spectrum of topics across the three technology sub-themes of structures and construction, environment, and information technology. The variety within these categories spans a width of topics, and these proceedings provide readers with a good general overview of recent advances in building research.

California's population is expected to add another 14 million people by 2030, reaching a total of 48 million. One of the most serious concerns of policymakers is whether the state will be able to supply the water needed to sustain such a population. Although many large water projects in the past were undertaken with state and federal leadership, most current options are local or regional in scope. The frontline agencies responsible for water supply are the hundreds of municipal utilities serving the state's residential and commercial customers. In this report, the author examines how well California is faring in meeting the water supply challenges of growth throughout the state and the extent to which local governments are integrating water supply concerns into their land-use planning. The report also evaluates progress in implementing the new "show me the water" laws, SB 610 and SB 221, which require up-front screening of water availability for large development projects.