ASU launches groundbreaking partnership to address water insecurity in Arizona
Initially formed to advance water security in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border, the Arizona Water for All Network, a pillar of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative at ASU, has expanded to designing innovative approaches to holistically address water insecurity across Arizona. Photo courtesy of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change
For the past two years, Arizona has contended with record-breaking heat and over 1,000 heat-related deaths in Maricopa County alone. However, the county is just a microcosm of the rest of the state, where it is estimated that thousands of households go without reliable water access each day.
A team spearheaded by Amber Wutich, President’s Professor in Arizona State University's School of Human Evolution and Social Change and director of the school’s Center for Global Health, is making strides to support water-insecure communities and households.
“The media keeps insisting that Phoenix is the most unsustainable city in the U.S., but the reality is that, at ASU, we’re leading the way in developing innovative engineering and social infrastructures to help humans survive and thrive in the face of water scarcity, excess heat and other climate stressors,” Wutich said.
Under the banner of Arizona Water for All (AW4A), Wutich and her team are combining social infrastructure with physical infrastructure and creating community partnerships to address water insecurity in Arizona. AW4A is one of the five pillars of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative (AWII), a $40 million, multiyear partnership with the state of Arizona led by the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory in collaboration with the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.
Initially formed to advance water security in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border, Wutich’s pillar of AWII has expanded to design innovative approaches to holistically address water insecurity across Arizona.
In November, Wutich and AW4A announced two new first-of-their-king partnerships with Northern Arizona University (NAU) and the University of Arizona (U of A) that will support water-insecure communities across the state.
“When we work with the University of Arizona, we can partner with border communities in Arizona’s Sonoran desert. And when we work with Northern University Arizona, we can partner with Navajo, Hopi and other Indigenous nations in the high desert mountains,” Wutich explained.
The growing AW4A network is a first of its kind in Arizona, bringing together communities across the state to address water insecurity at a broad level.
NAU partnerships to address diverse experiences of water insecurity
Lucero Radonic, an associate professor at NAU’s Department of Anthropology and School of Earth and Sustainability, will be leading research in Coconino County at the Water, Society and Policy Lab.
Her goal is to continue to train the next generation of researchers on how to engage with diverse community actors and institutions for the advancement of water security.
“In the lab, we think about water security, both at the household level — do you have enough reliable quality water to drink? — and at the landscape level — do we actually have healthy river systems and water-conscious land-use planning?” Radonic explained.
She is currently working to identify trends in experiences of water hauling in rural, unincorporated communities, which she described as a “widely unexplored area.” Radonic is looking to establish new partnerships under AW4A to collaborate with water experts asking similar questions, particularly on Navajo and Hopi tribal lands. Her research will also support Wutich’s research in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I think it's important to recognize that the experiences around water hauling here are super diverse. Even within the Coconino Plateau where we are located,” Radonic said. “The reasons behind different groups’ water-hauling experiences are equally diverse and always tied to histories of land and water development.”
According to Radonic, one of the most important components of the AW4A partnership is bringing the issue of water security to a broader audience.
“I don’t think many people know that water access and insecurity can take so many different shapes. To me, creating awareness is very important,” Radonic said.
U of A to use storytelling to research water injustice in southern Arizona
For southern Arizonans, water security is an ever-present discussion, according to Megan Carney, the director of the U of A’s Center for Regional Food Studies.
“Living in the desert, in an arid climate, and with the future of water feeling precarious makes water a very precious resource. With the state of Arizona producing many different agricultural commodities that are really water intensive, people are constantly worrying about water access, long-term availability and the cost of water, which is increasing,” Carney said.
The U of A’s partnership with AW4A will enable Carney to continue her community-based collaborative research into perceptions of food and water insecurity in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. With a well-known lack of infrastructure and access to services throughout much of Arizona’s borderlands, Carney hopes her research will result in increased local participation in water-related decision-making.
“We will be hosting a series of community dialogues with residents to convene folks around questions of water insecurity, how they experience it in their daily lives, how they navigate it, the ways that we might be able to increase both their knowledge of, and participation in, decision-making around water and other resources in this part of the state,” Carney said.
She will also dedicate resources to the Future of Food and Social Justice Youth Storytelling Project, which engages yearly undergraduate cohorts in environmental storytelling through various mediums. The program is a device to empower students from historically underrepresented communities to share their experiences in an effort to shape the environmental future of their communities.
“What our lab aims to do is uplift the knowledge that youth bring with them from various aspects of their lives and help them cultivate their unique voices. We want them to get their stories out into the world so that they can help imagine and shape their futures around questions of environmental justice,” Carney said.
During Carney’s partnership with AW4A, lab participants will focus on water and justice.
“Partnering with our sister universities, Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona, is essential because it helps us bring the strengths of working with different peoples and ecologies,” Wutich said. “It’s an honor to work together across our beautiful, diverse state to improve people’s water and lives.”
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