Water Resources Research Center
ABOUT THE COLLECTION
The University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) - a unit within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences - promotes understanding of critical state and regional water management and policy issues through research, community outreach and public education.
The WRRC produces research reports, outreach materials and regular publications, including the quarterly Arizona Water Resource (AWR) newsletter. The AWR and the Arroyo, an annual publication focusing on a single water topic of timely concern in Arizona, are distributed via an email subscription list and posted on the WRRC website.
Selected current and past WRRC Issue Papers and other publications are available through the University of Arizona Campus Repository. In addition to the publications available on this website, all current and archived WRRC publications are available at wrrc.arizona.edu/publications.
QUESTIONS?
For more information, visit the WRRC website (wrrc.arizona.edu) or contact us at (520) 621-9591.
Collections in this community
Recent Submissions
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Arizona Water Resource Vol. 20 No. 2 (Spring 2012)When the captain announced the plane’s descent, I put my book down and peered out the window as I always do. I saw sand dunes first, leading my eye to a small mountain range flanked by dirt roads and farm fields. The mountains framed successive basins, each with the same dry ground spotted with desert shrubs. After the next range, a city emerged. Densely packed buildings appeared beside finished roads. And the canals ran from the farm fields into the city, running full next to dry riverbeds. It looked a lot like Tucson. But I was in Torreon, Mexico.
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Arizona Water Resource Vol. 80 No. 3 (July-September 1980)With the generous cooperation of Peabody Coal Company, the financial support of the U.S. Bureau of Mines, and the ingenuity of two University of Arizona scientists, surface-mined land on northern Arizona's Black Mesa is being reclaimed using a unique water-harvesting and agriculture technique. Peabody annually mines about 200 acres for coal on Black Mesa to fuel the Mojave and Navajo power generating plants at Bullhead City and Page, Arizona, respectively.
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Arroyo Winter 2007Faced with the significant challenge of groundwater overdraft, Arizona adopted groundwater recharge as a water management priority. This 12-page publication discusses early interest in recharge, describing legislative efforts to encourage and regulate projects and identifying significant issues relating to recharge such as water quality implications and control of subsidence as well as focusing on ongoing recharge projects.
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Arizona Water Resource Vol. 9 No. 5 (March-April 2001)The poet Frank O'Hara was obviously on the side of the urbanist when he wrote, "I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy." The urban ecologist looks beyond this view, with its division of the world into the natural environment and areas inhabited by humans, a dichotomy variously expressed as city vs. country, urban vs. rural, or the great outdoors vs. crowded city spaces.
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Arizona Water Resource Vol. 1 No. 1 (Spring 2009)Arizona has another Wild and Scenic River; Fossil Creek with it’s the travertine geological formations and crystal clear waters now shares the same protected designation as a segment of the middle Verde River, the state’s only other Wild and Scenic River. Approving Fossil Creek’s special designation was a detail in a massive piece of legislation, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, a package of over 160 bills, that set aside more than 2 million acres of newly protected wilderness in nine states. More than 3.3 million acres of public lands in Arizona gained permanent protection. President Obama signed the law on March 30. Fossil Creek is an Arizona success story, an environmental rags-to-riches tale. Dammed early last century for power generation, Fossil Creek’s once quick-running water was a mere a trickle until the turn of this century. In 1999, Arizona Public Service shut down the power plants, and restoration efforts commenced. The dam was lowered and diversions ceased in June 2005, restoring full flows to the creek. This is the first Arizona watercourse to have a major water retention structure retired. In its heyday Fossil Creek was considered the fourth largest travertine system in the world. Fed by underground streams, it ran year-round almost 17 miles to the Verde River, its waters rich with calcium carbonate from the limestone aquifer below. Fossil Creek was one of 86 newly established Wild and Scenic Rivers with others located in California, Idaho, Massachusetts, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Wyoming. Efforts are underway to gain support for a Wild and Scenic listing of another Arizona River, the Blue River, a tributary to the San Francisco River. Rivers or segment of rivers are designated Wild and Scenic to protect special qualities including scenic, recreational, geologic, and fish and wildlife; they are not to be dammed or otherwise impeded to protect their free-flowing condition. The recently passed law also provides other water-related provisions benefitting the state. Funding was authorized to support the federal government’s role in a comprehensive effort to preserve wildlife habitat along the lower Colorado River. The bill also authorized the Secretary of the Interior to consider ways to supplement water supplies in the Sierra Vista Subwatershed to benefit Fort Huachuca and the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.
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Arizona Water Resource Vol. 18 No. 2 (Spring 2010)The water resource field is among those areas expected to benefit from nanotechnology, its application holding special promise for treatment and remediation; sensing and detection; and pollution prevention. That cuts a rather wide swath in the water resources field. The nanorevolution or movement is being met with both optimism and caution as scientists ponder how best to take advantage of its benefits and at the same time understand and reckon with its possible risks.
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Arizona Water Resource Vol. 18 No. 3 (Summer 2010)Novelist John Updike is taking a dim view of leadership when he asks in his novel, Rabbit is Rich, “How can you respect the world when you see it’s being run by a bunch of kids turned old?” The Water Resources Research Center conference was organized with a far loftier idea of leadership, at least in the water and environmental field. Titled “Creating New Leadership for Arizona’s Water and Environment in a Time of Change,” the conference was premised on the belief that present and up-and-coming leaders share a commitment to ensure future wise management of the state’s water and environment. With due respect to Updike, the conference recognized that many graduating students, the bunch of kids who will be turning older, will be the emerging leaders in the water and the environmental field. This, however, is seen as a cause of optimism; the conference recognized their talents and offered an opportunity to advance their interests. A program lineup of seasoned professionals in the water and environmental field and promising rookies was part of the game plan for addressing conference issues. The conference raised some critical questions: What kinds of leaders are needed to navigate a future marked by change and uncertainty? What is the best way to foster these leaders? The meeting served as a forum for participants, both established professionals and emerging leaders, those who have long labored in the field and those getting started, to work together to answer the very challenging questions. This special edition of the Arizona Water Resource newsletter provides conference coverage, identifying major issues and noting some of the recommendations and findings from the different sessions. What is included is necessarily selective. Hopefully, however, the featured highlights will show that the conference was a vigorous and engaging event. Additional conference information is available at the WRRC web site: cals.arizona.edu/azwater.
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Arizona Water Resource Vol.19 No. 3 (Summer 2011)From May 2010 to March 2011, Reclamation conducted a pilot run of the Yuma Desalting Plant (YDP) and demonstrated its potential to augment lower Colorado River supplies. Over 30,000 acre-feet of irrigation return flow was recycled preserving a like amount of Colorado River water in Lake Mead, approximately the amount of water used by 116,000 people in a year.
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Arizona Water Resource Vol. 16 No. 4 (March-April 2008)Special double issue! This publication is a "twofer" containing a shortened version of the Arizona Water Resource newsletter along with the most recent edition of Arroyo focusing on river restoration projects in the state. The AWR notes the 50th anniversary of the Water Resources Research Center. In some ways the University of Arizona’s Water Resources Research Center is one among many, one of the 54 water institutes established by the Water Resources Research Act of 1964. The federal act authorized establishing water institutes in each state and in four U.S. territories
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Arizona Water Resource Vol. 19 No. 2 (Spring 2011)Water draws people together because water is life. However, when many people, animals, and industries are competing over limited water, things can get tense. Transboundary aquifers are sources of groundwater that defy our political boundaries and often lead to intense conversation about what should be done in order to give everyone a fair share.
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Arizona Water Resource Vol. 20 No. 3 (Summer 2012)In recent years, U.S. employers have been reaching out internationally in order to fill job vacancies in highly skilled science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. This situation has led to calls for better STEM education in the United States. Innovative educational initiatives have emerged to answer the call for more professional competence in these STEM areas. In his 2012 State of the Union address to Congress, President Barrack Obama again emphasized the need to interest and educate young people to become the scientists, engineers and mathematicians of the future. “Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job.” The challenge, he said, is providing the right educational environment for teachers and students to excel.
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Arizona Water Resource Vol. 20 No. 4 (Fall 2012)Fungicide in orange juice, Arsenic in apple juice, Listeria in cantaloupe--these are the latest “food safety issues you care about” listed at foodandwaterwatch.org. But how important are these issues? The public can see Food and Drug Administration reports on all three by going to the FDA website. An outbreak of Listeria associated with contaminated cantaloupe caused 30 deaths in 2011, and concern continued in 2012 with an additional death and recalls of potentially contaminated fruit. Washing the fruit before cutting it might have lowered the death toll. Responsibility for food safety lies with the consumer, who should be informed about the real risks of foodborne illness. But it also extends to a wide range of parties including farmers, producers, processors, and establishments that serve food. All of these people need reliable, science-based information to ensure the safety of our food supply.
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Arizona Water Resource Vol. 21 No. 3 (Summer 2013)On Saturday, June 1, 2013, water was released from Elephant Butte Reservoir in South Central New Mexico into the Rio Grande. It took more than two days to travel the 80 miles to fields near Las Cruces, as water soaked into the parched riverbed. Waiting for the flow were chile, pecan, cotton and alfalfa growers in Southern New Mexico, Western Texas and Mexico, as well as the city of El Paso, Texas, which depends on the Rio Grande for half its water supply.
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Arroyo 2011The process of removing salts from water to produce fresh water is known as desalination. Available technology allows seawater or brackish groundwater, which can be found in large quantities, to be converted into clean, usable water. In water scare locations this has the potential to greatly increase the fresh water supply.
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Arroyo Winter 2008Urbanization, channelization, ground-water depletion, irrigated agriculture, and a variety of other activities have significantly affected many of Arizona's rivers. This 12-page Arroyo issue looks at many river restoration and enhancement projects in Arizona and the issues, partnerships, benefits and water sources characterizing each effort.
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Arroyo 2013The Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) has just released its 2013 annual Arroyo – a 12-page newsletter devoted to a single topic of timely interest to Arizona. This year, the topic is “Contaminants of Emerging Concern in Water,” a subject that has raised questions from the public and challenged water managers and regulators across the country. Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) are “substances we use every day for all kinds of purposes, which get flushed, washed or otherwise discarded and end up in water and soil.” They are being detected in trace amounts in the water supply, raising the need to know what risks they represent and what, if anything, should be done about them. The new Arroyo brings together current information and presents definitions, examples and study results, while describing efforts to tackle the issue. The WRRC publishes Arroyo each spring, and initial research is carried out the previous summer by the winner of the Montgomery & Associates Summer Writing Internship. The 2012 intern was Madhumitha Raghav, a Ph.D. student in Environmental Engineering at the University of Arizona.