The Challenge of Managing Arizona Water

Arizona Water Policy: Management Innovations in an Urbanizing, Arid Region Bonnie G. Colby and Katharine L. Jacobs, editors. Resources for the Future, cloth $65. For information about ordering check: www.rffpress.org

Explosive population growth in a region of limited water supplies poses an obvious dilemma. The water management task is to address the dilemma, with the understanding that dilemmas are not often totally resolved. Whatever resolution is achieved comes after tensions inherent within a dilemma are measurably reduced by working through complexities and arriving at the most advantageous decision given the situation.

Edited by Bonnie G. Colby and Katharine L. Jacobs, “Arizona Water Policy: Management Innovations in an Urbanizing, Arid Region” provides a broad perspective of the multifaceted water supply/population growth dilemma. What water resources are available to Arizona? What historic, economic and social conditions have determined state water policy? What institutions have been devised to enable Arizona to more efficiently manage its scarce water resources? These are some of the major questions the 15 articles or chapters within the volume discuss.

The chapters emphasize the importance of institutions and institutional arrangements — e.g. laws, regulations and public policy — to ensure that water is efficiently managed to serve the best interest of the state. Analysis is the key, to better understand the situation or, in the case of the issue addressed in this volume, the dilemma, and to making effective institutional decisions. The essays offer the analysis to help identify good water management practices.

Many water related topics or issues are covered including state and federal laws, drought and climate variability, geographic distribution of supplies, water quality, recharge and recovery, tribal water rights, urban growth and rural water concerns. Each is a facet of the multifaceted Arizona water supply/water use picture. Along with noting a range of issues of concern to water policymakers, the book also describes Arizona’s adoption of new and innovative approaches for addressing water problems; e.g. the Arizona Groundwater Management Act and the water bank.

Readers familiar with Arizona water resource issues will recognize the names of most of the contributors to the book. They are people who have long been active in state water affairs, in various capacities, including as researchers, federal and state officials, engineers and attorneys. The authorship is a veritable who’s-who roster of Arizona water resource experts.

The book leaves the impression that Arizona water affairs are indeed a very complicated business. If it does not offer a resolution to the state’s water resource dilemma – as long as people continue to come to the state and water resources remain limited the dilemma will remain– the book, by raising and discussing critical water issues, points in the direction of wise water management choices.

Work on the book was supported by the University of Arizona, the Technology and Research Initiative Fund, the Water Sustainability Program through the Water Resources Research Center and SAHRA (Sustainability of Semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas) under the STC Program of the National Science Foundation.