Sharon Megdal and Pat Mulroy, from the Southern Nevada Water Authority, spoke on a panel about water management under scarcity conditions, during the sixth international WATEC exhibition on water technologies, renewable energy and environmental control, held from November 15-17 in Tel Aviv, Israel.

The Joe Gelt Student Writing Competition for undergraduates in Arizona universities is now open for 2011. The Water Resources Research Center inaugurated this annual contest in Fall 2009 as a motivational tool to encourage better writing about water.

In 2010, the Regional Water Assessment Task Force held a series of four computer network-based ThinkTank sessions to gain input and guidance on priority regional water issues as well as management options from stakeholders throughout the Tucson Active Management Area.

The UA Water Resources Research Center has just released the 2011 Arroyo, dedicated to the subject of desalination. Water professionals in Arizona have been focusing recently on water desalination as a means of increasing supply to meet the state’s growing water demands.

A University of Arizona research group is backing an innovative new water conservation program that one day could save thousands of acre-feet of water for area environmental projects.

Kristine Uhlman, RG, Area Assistant Agent, Cooperative Extension and Arizona NEMO Program Coordinator at the WRRC, was elected to the 2011 Scientists and Engineers Division Board of Directors for the National Ground Water Association for a two year term.

WRRC Director Sharon Megdal was awarded the Distinguished Outreach Faculty Award during the Winter Commencement Ceremony on December 18, 2010. This award recognizes outstanding faculty members whose scholarship-based outreach to the state, nation, and the world has demonstrated sustained excellence in the University of Arizona’s outreach mission.

A three-year, $800,938 grant from NASA will fund a Tucson-area Earth Camp where participants will be immersed in the study of water.

The University of Arizona has a new graduate degree program that integrates science, policy and decision-making in the arena of water.