In Arizona, many once lush riparian areas have been lost. This decline has not gone unnoticed, and in the past decade a growing number of efforts have been undertaken to restore, maintain or create new riparian and wetland areas. The number of riparian restoration projects nationwide has also increased, growing exponentially in the last decade. Along side this explosion of restoration projects, the interest of the scientific community and the public at large has also grown significantly. Scientists have conducted many studies examining various aspects of environmental enhancement projects. Considerable research and debate have surrounded defining and measuring restoration areas and the value of “created” habitat. Other research has focused on identifying the common elements of restoration projects, such as the work by Bernhart, et al. who are compiling a comprehensive database of restoration efforts throughout the United States.
In this report, we provide complementary information to these studies in the form of a descriptive look at environmental enhancement projects throughout the State of Arizona. The report examines the more subjective aspects of environmental enhancement projects. At the outset of the project we sought to answer a series of questions: Who are the key players in the implementation of environmental enhancement projects and what factors drive the project’s undertaking? What are the benefits of these projects? How are these projects using scarce water resources? Do they have legal claim to these water sources? And how long will supplementary water be required? Along with answers to these questions, we sought lessons learned both through the specific projects and from the wider lens of the 30 projects taken as a whole.