Sustainable water management is a critical concern in the semi-arid portionsof the American Southwest. This paper explains the decentralized approach towater supply management in this region, including the traditional roles ofthe public and private sectors. With Arizona as a focus, it explores how thewater supply challenges of the twenty-first century require new approachesand partnerships for funding infrastructure, obtaining new water supplies,water banking, and water treatment.

This article describes the WRRC’s Conserve to Enhance (C2E) Tucson pilot project from concept to implementation and preliminary results.  C2E aims to connect conservation actions with water for the environment by developing mechanisms for funding water-related environmental enhancements. The Tucson pilot demonstrates the challenges and opportunities of making this concept a reality.

This chapter develops the story of the Central Arizona Project as an example of the large-scale, long-distance water conveyance projects that have enabled growth and development to occur in the West far from sources of water. It examines the energy implication of the CAP as well as the implications of changes and constraints in the energy industry on CAP water supplies and costs. It looks also at broader policy questions raised by the interdependencies of water and energy as embodied in the CAP.

Desalination, the removal of salts from water, harvests fresh water from salty water. It is not the “silver bullet” that will supply the world, or Arizona, with fresh water, but rather a potentially important component of the water portfolio. “At its simplest, the technology might substantially reduce water scarcity by making the almost inexhaustible stock of seawater and the large quantities of brackish groundwater that appear to be available into new sources of fresh water supply,” as the National Research Council stated in Desalination: A National Perspective. However, disposal of waste salts,energy requirements, environmental impacts, infrastructure costs and regulatory uncertainty remain challenges to water managers.