River basins are inherently complex systems comprising many interdependent components. Development activities undertaken without full consideration of the regional, social, environmental, and economic implications can and have had adverse repercussions. Management practices that respond to a single water use, a single population segment, or a single sector have caused inadvertent disruption to other uses, populations, and sectors. This review promotes a systems approach for developing and managing river basins. By including all critical components into a river basin plan, development and management objectives will be better met. To this end, we review integrated economic river basin models covering a wide range of issues, including water quantity and quality, environmental considerations, and conflicts at the sectoral, regional, and international levels. This synopsis characterizes the essential components of economic river basin modeling, provides guidelines for model specifications, and illustrates salient points with key examples from the literature.