On January 24, 2012, the Water Resources Research Center is holding its annual conference, “Urbanization, Uncertainty and Water: Planning for Arizona’s Second Hundred Years”; in the Student Memorial Union at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Organized in collaboration with the ASU Morrison Institute for Public Policy, the conference builds on their recently released report Watering the Sun Corridor: Managing Choices in Arizona’s Megapolitan Area [see Resources this issue] addressing overarching questions about the kind of future we want and how we might get there—with a special focus on water.
As Arizona embarks on its second century as a state, its future holds both promise and uncertainty. Among the major challenges Arizonans will have to face are changing demands on our finite water supplies. Arizona is already one of the most urbanized states in the U.S. and will become even more urban in the future, with a metropolitan region predicted to extend from Prescott, through the Phoenix area cities, Pinal County and the Tucson area, to southcentral Cochise County. Where will the water come from to support such a megapolitan area? What are the implications for the region and the rest of the state of such a concentration of population?
Civic, business and environmental leaders will join water policy and management experts in examining the water challenges of the “Sun Corridor” in Arizona.
The conference keynote speaker Rob Lang, Fellow of the Brookings Institution and Director of Brookings Mountain West, is well known as an expert on growth and adaptation of megapolitan areas. Grady Gammage will discuss the Sun Corridor report. David Brown and Karen Smith will each present and answer questions about other recently released reports – The Water Resources Development Commission Final Report, for which Mr. Brown served as Co-Chair, and the Grand Canyon Institute’s Arizona at the Crossroads: Water Scarcity or Water Sustainability? authored by Dr. Smith. For a change of pace, historian Jack August, author of Vision in the Desert and Dividing Western Waters, will speak at lunch on the history of water for cities in Arizona’s first 100 years.
The WRRC’s annual conferences generally attract a diverse audience of 200-300 people, including decisionmakers, water resource managers, professionals of all sorts, academics, students and the public. With its timely theme, we expect the conference to attract participants from throughout the “Sun Corridor” and from across the state.
The one-day conference will be preceded on January 23 by an optional workshop sponsored by the Sonoran Institute and the Lincoln Land Institute. The report, Watering the Sun Corridor will be reviewed and discussed. An interactive session will focus on the fundamental policy and value choices we will face about water in the Sun Corridor and on the driving forces that will shape these choices and water use and management in Arizona. Results from this discussion will be reported to the full Water Resources Research Center conference on the 24th and will help shape a Sonoran Institute initiative to educate and engage the larger community of civic, business and political leadership in a broad based regional dialogue on our shared water future.
The conference website can be accessed by going to the WRRC conference button on the WRRC home page at cals.arizona.edu/AZWATER Information on conference cost, registration and the program are now available.