News

The WRRC joins the Arizona water community in mourning the loss of Marie Pearthree, who died on February 22, 2023. Marie Slezak Pearthree was born on December 17, 1955, in Indianapolis, IN. After traveling widely with her family to various State Department postings, she attended Oberlin College in Ohio, majoring in Geology, and later went on to earn an MS in Geosciences from UArizona and become a Professional Engineer (Civil).

The UN 2023 Water Conference, scheduled for March 22–24, 2023, will bring together over 6,500 people from across the globe. Only the second UN water conference (the first was held in 1977 in Argentina), the three-day event is co-hosted by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Republic of Tajikistan.

Last week, three faculty members of the UArizona Presidential Advisory Commission on the Future of Agriculture and Food Production in a Drying Climate visited Robert Nickerson Farms Inc. in Yuma, AZ. Owner Rob Nickerson gave the special Commission members a private tour of his farm’s expansive vegetable-growing operations and explained his growing practices.

TAAP-A/S (Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program-Arizona/Sonora) is a federally funded program co-hosted by the USGS Arizona Water Science Center in Tucson, Arizona, and the Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) at the University of Arizona.

In 2020, the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) and the City of Buckeye, Arizona (Buckeye) partnered on the Hassayampa River Study (Study). The Study investigates the impacts of theoretical use of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) and conventional stormwater infrastructure (CSI) to manage stormwater in a regional watershed and hypothetical development within Buckeye, on an alluvial fan on the west side of the White Tank Mountains.

As Arizona’s federally authorized Water Resources Research Institute, the WRRC helps administer USGS-funded Coordination Grants under the Water Resources Research Act. Dr. Jennifer Duan, professor of Hydraulics and Water Resource Engineering at the University of Arizona, has received a USGS Coordination Grant for her project titled “Standardizing Software and Processes for Image Velocimetry Gauging Methods.”

APW is so excited to be getting back into the field, with many of its 2023 Water Festivals taking place in February and March. This means there are many opportunities for the public to get involved and contribute to their communities at these fun-filled educational field days.

The University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center invites proposals for conference presentations and posters for its 2023 Annual Conference, What Can We Do? Solutions to Arizona’s Water Challenges. Proposals should offer solutions to the pressing water resource challenges currently facing Arizona and the region.

To investigate connections between landforms on Mars to landforms on Earth, APW travels far into water education topics. Through a partnership with Flagstaff’s STEM City Full STEAM Ahead (FSA) program, APW is engaged in a year-long initiative with FUSD’s Shauna Cooper of Knoles Elementary to deepen science instruction in her fifth-grade classroom.

Desalination is often considered as an important option for augmenting Arizona’s water supply. WRRC Director Sharon Megdal has recently been consulted for news stories from NPR and ABC regarding desalination projects.