This month, the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) approved Tucson Water’s assured water supply (AWS) designation for the next ten years, determining that Tucson residents would have at least 166,000 acre-feet of water annually for the next century.

The Water & Tribes Initiative (WTI) recently published a new policy brief, titled Tribal Sovereignty in the Colorado River Basin and Beyond. It begins by placing Tribal sovereignty in historical context, noting that “Native peoples have existed within self-governing political communities in North America for a very long time—millennia before Europeans arrived on the continent.”

On Thursday, July 16, a Growing Water Smart Peer Network Webinar featured a discussion of “Colorado River Negotiations.” Hosted by the Sonoran Institute and the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy, the webinar was co-sponsored by the WRRC and the Colorado Water Center at Colorado State University. WRRC Director Sharon B. Megdal and Karen Schlatter, Director of the Colorado Water Center at Colorado State University, provided presentations followed by a question-and-answer session with attendees.

The WRRC Annual Photo Contest is back! This year’s theme is Water in Focus. Use your artistic and technical abilities to express how water transforms our world and how people transform water. From ANY LOCATION, we invite you to show us how water connects to people, nature, the built environment, and agriculture.

The WRRC is seeking an AmeriCorps member to support our communications and outreach programs. This service opportunity is ideal for someone with strong writing and communication skills and an interest in water resources and environmental issues.

On June 15, a group of four scientists released their report on a 12-year study of environmental flow impacts on the Colorado River Delta, The State of the Colorado River Delta: Effects of Environmental Water Deliveries, 2014-2025.

In Active Management Areas (AMAs), the state of Arizona regulates water use to conserve water resources. Outside of AMAs, however, water conservation is voluntary. The WRRC’s new Water Conservation Factsheets offer informational resources on water conservation for those outside AMAs—often based in rural areas—who are seeking conservation best practices for their farms, municipalities, domestic wells, and more.

The WRRC is pleased to announce the release of the Arizona Domestic Well Owner’s Toolkit. The toolkit is now available as a PDF on the WRRC website, with printed copies to be available soon. We invite you to explore the toolkit and share it with colleagues, community members, and domestic well owners who may benefit from this resource.

A new water podcast, Listening to the Ripples, is all about centering and honoring our relationship with water through the care and leadership of Indigenous matriarchs. Join host tylee nez (Diné/Hopi) to explore the communities, climate, hydrology, and history of the Colorado River Basin, featuring Indigenous women living in the basin and advocating for water sovereignty.

Global water scarcity is often described as a crisis, but according to Kaveh Madani, Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health, this term is misleading. Crisis implies a short-term, reversible disruption. The world’s human-water systems are well beyond the crisis point. Instead, these systems are entering global water bankruptcy following a period of water insolvency so prolonged that many of its impacts have become irreversible. On June 10, 2026, the WRRC hosted a webinar with Madani to discuss his framework for the state of global water resources and to imagine a path forward.