UA’s Involvement With Water Broadens With Two New Academic Programs

Water is an emphais in two new University of Arizona programs. One of the programs provides graduate students and working professionals the opportunity to earn a certificate in water policy. The other is a collaborative effort combining the concepts of law and economics to better understand environmental issues

Certificate in Water Policy Offered

Graduate students and working water professionals wanting to broaden and enhance their water policy expertise will be able to enroll in the recently approved University of Arizona’s Graduate Certificate in Water Policy. Earning the certificate requires taking 12 units or four UA graduate courses. Scheduling flexibility is a key to the program, with students able to complete work from one semester to two years. This is to accommodate the different schedules of graduate students and working professionals, the two groups served by the program.

The way it now works is that UA graduate students interested in water issues pursue traditional academic degrees in various UA programs including environmental sciences, social sciences, engineering and law, each program offering a particular focus on water.

Carl Bauer, Water Resources Research Center associate director and certificate program director, says some of these students might want more exposure to water policy. “They might want to round out and deepen their understanding of policy to complement their work in some more established fields.”
The interdisciplinary certificate program will provide a water policy grounding to students in these varied disciplines.

Also targeted as students for the policy certificate are working, on-the-job water professionals. Bauer says, “These are people working in the world who have at least a bachelor’s degree and maybe more but want the opportunity to get deeper into policy issues.”

He says, “Many water managers have scientific or engineering backgrounds without the academic work in policy-related studies. They now deal with policy because of their professional activities. Some realize they need more training in the policy area.”

Certificate scheduling has been arranged to accommodate working professionals’ on-the-job commitments. The four-course certificate program can be completed in one semester during a short professional sabbatical or courses could be taken over time to fit educational release programs in government and industry. Organizations could use the certificate as a way to provide on-the-job training and educational opportunities to promote career growth.

UA units and departments offering certificate course work include the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, College of Law, Department of Geography and Regional Development, School of Public Administration and Policy, and Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science.

Bauer says the certificate program is helping fill a UA need for water policy or water management instruction. He says, “The UA does not currently offer a water policy or water management degree. We have a lot of faculty expertise in these areas and interested students can find classes in various departments around campus, but there is not a degree that brings this together and says ‘water policy’ in the title.”
Bauer says the water policy certificate may be the first step toward establishing such a degree. He says, “The university is moving in the direction of a more structured program to strengthen and consolidate water management and policy as a major area of expertise. This is a first step. It will help to institutionalize our expertise in the policy and social science aspects of water. ”

The water policy certificate program has been approved effective this summer to begin operating in the fall.

Program Applies Both Law and Economics to Study of Environmental Issues

Environmental and natural resource studies often rely on the disciplines of economics and law to explain varied and complex issues. The limitation of this traditional approach is that two views are offered: the law view and the economic view. A new University of Arizona program is breaking new ground with a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to the study of environmental issues that draws upon the insights provided by both legal theory and economic analysis.

Called Economics, Law and the Environment, the research and education program is a joint venture between the James E. Rogers College of Law and the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. ELE co-directors are Kirsten H. Engel, UA professor of law and Dean Lueck, Bartley P. Cardon Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics and also a professor of economics and of law.

Engel says, “The ELE program is the first formal collaborative program between law and economics in the nation which focuses on environmental issues.”

She says law and economics offer complementary approaches to understanding natural resource issues. Laws are applied to manage the environment; economics determines whether resources are being managed in the best interest of society.

ELE has been founded with high expectations that the program will gain recognition as a national center for the combined study of economics, law and the environment. Lueck says, “We intend to not only bring in first-rate scholars to visit the UA and present their work, but also to attract and encourage the best students.”

ELE program directors hope eventually to provide funding to support faculty research. Plans also call for establishing an annual lecture series as well as providing stipends to support student research. Engel says this is in the future when funding is available.

Engel and Lueck also look forward to ELE offering more courses bringing together the disciplines of law and economics to study environmental and natural resource issues. Engel says, “We would like to offer more courses in the future but right now we are offering them under the auspices of either department.”

Water figures prominently as one of the environmental and natural resource issues of concern to ELE. Along with expertise in water economics and water law, faculty affiliated with ELE have backgrounds in the economics of natural resources and the law of natural resources, land use economics and land use law, the economics of property and property law, the law and economics of environmental regulation, biodiversity, sustainability, federalism and risk management.

ELE will be sponsoring a workshop each spring. The workshop this spring featured five nationally known scholars presenting works-in-progress that applied economic approaches to environmental problems and natural resource issues. Conducted as a seminar, the workshop was attended by law and AREC students along with ELE-affiliated faculty members.

Upcoming events include a symposium on October 26 on “Property Rights in Environmental Assets: Economic and Legal Perspectives,” to be held at the Arizona State Museum on the UA campus.
For additional information about the ELE Program check its web site: www.ele.arizona.edu

Public Participation Serves Varied Political Goals

Among the various factors to consider when making water-related decisions is public participation. Varady says, “In this country it would be the kiss of death to design a water process without allowing the public to have a voice.” He says public participation traveled a roundabout political circuit to get to where it is today. At first more or less driven by liberal concerns, public participation was a populist notion to involve people in making decisions affecting their livelihoods and lives. Those on the political right later embraced public participation as a strategy to advance states’ rights as one way to “get government off people’s backs.” In such a view, public participation was appropriated as a way for local residents to take control without interference from Washington or even Phoenix. But while both the right and left may advocate a larger role for the public, citizen involvement in decisions affecting their own watersheds, to take one example, also can serve as a way to bridge opposing ideologies.

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