WRRC Research Analyst Ashley Hullinger and Amanda Smith, Program Coordinator at the Sonoran Institute, co-authored an article in the March/April volume of IMPACT by the American Water Resources Association. The article, “Looming Water Gap in the Colorado River Basin Leads Two Arizona Communities toward Integrated Land and Water Planning,” follows the Town of Florence and City of Casa Grande as these communities work toward innovative solutions to support sustainable growth in water-scarce Pinal Active Management Area.

APW is celebrating Fix a Leak Week (March 15-19) all semester! In partnership with the Town of Gilbert, we’re using a Project WET lesson called Every Drop Counts to virtually bring meaningful learning to fourth-grade students.

On Wednesday, March 17, the Arizona Institutes for Resilience, in partnership with the WRRC and the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, hosted the first episode of the Water Solutions for Our Warmer World webinar series. 

Underwater robots are exploring new depths and APW is exploring new possibilities for hands-on learning. Partnering with 4-H STEM YOUniversity

Droughts, intense rainstorms, floods, debris flows, sea-level rise: all have the common element of water, and all are being exacerbated by climate change. A warmer world will bring increasing ecological, social, and economic challenges in which water plays a key role. What can we as a community do? The UArizona, with a long history of partnering its own experts in water-related research and policy with those from organizations throughout the region, is helping to build water-related resilience at multiple scales.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) Aridlands Water Harvesting Study has been investigating the potential to sculpt landscapes in the Madrean Archipelago Ecoregion and quantifying impacts (on hydrology, vegetation, and sediment) over the past 10 years.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of working virtually, the WRRC Water RAPIDS team leans into collaborative watershed planning and research with our partners in the Cobre Valley from afar. In November 2020, the team co-convened the Third Annual Cobre Valley Water Forum alongside the Cobre Valley Watershed Partnership (CVWP) and Gila County Cooperative Extension.

Tucson second graders are learning how forest fires, flooding, and erosion are all part of an interconnected system through Arizona Project WET’s virtual Forests, Fires, and Floods presentation. 

The American Water Resources Association (AWRA) just released a new issue of its magazine, Water Resources IMPACT, on the theme of “Wicked Water Problems.”

In this article, we present a vision to enhance urban water system resilience through a Net Zero Urban Water (NZUW) approach, which meets the needs of a given community with a locally available and sustainable water supply, without detriment to interconnected systems or long-term water supply (See Figure 1 below).