Includes insert: Arizona Environmental Water Needs Assessment Report and Methodology Guidebook. / “It’s a promise to be a good citizen of the world, protecting the Earth’s natural resources through innovation and more efficient use of land, energy, water and packaging in our operations.” – PepsiCo, on their environmental sustainability promise Environmentalists and corporations have not always seen eye-to-eye on matters of how our natural resources should best be used. In fact, many people see corporate industry as inherently anti-environmental. However, without industry, we would not be able to enjoy many of the comforts of modern day living. Corporations have many responsibilities including: to gain profit for their investors, to keep costs low for their consumers, to use natural resources efficiently, and to maintain decent pay and working conditions for their employees. So, how should corporations balance these differing needs with protection of the natural environment? Many corporations now have developed multiple ways of creating this balance. These include water stewardship plans, partnerships between corporations and environmental groups that help both parties agree on a water management strategy, implementation of environmental best practices, and new ideas for the future of water accountability and transparency.

Global Water Brigades (GWB) is a program under Global Brigades, the largest student-led, non-profit, sustainable development organization in the world. Global Brigades works on a holistic model with disciplines in water, public health, medical, dental, architecture, environmental, law, business, and micro-finance. Students across the U.S., and around the world, start chapters at their universities to mobilize students in projects that empower rural areas in Honduras, Panama, and Ghana to improve their conditions. Water Brigades specifically develops clean water solutions for rural Honduras and Ghana. Throughout the school year, GWB discuss and assess the community. Then, over spring break, the group goes to actually build the water system. GWB work alongside community members and make a one day educational presentation to the local school about the importance of clean water. The UA chapter began in September 2010. Last year, UA only had water and medical disciplines as Global Brigades chapters on campus. Now there are two medical groups, dental, public health and business; and a law brigade is starting.

The opportunity to hear expert presentations and discussion on the issue of water security attracted approximately 300 people to the WRRC’s annual conference, “Water Security from the Ground Up”. The audience represented more than 40 communities across Arizona.

Includes supplement: USGS Fact Sheet 2013-3001, January 2013, Understanding and Managing the Effects of Groundwater Pumping on Streamflow / In November 2012, five people were elected for the Central Arizona Water Conservation District. The CAWCD and its board members may not be well known to the general public, but they play an important role in Arizona water policy. The CAWCD manages, operates, and directs policy for the Central Arizona Project (CAP), the supplier of approximately 1.5 million acre-feet of water for Maricopa, Pinal, and Pima counties. This water is critical for the people of Central Arizona

Conserve, reuse and augment summarize Arizona's strategy to meet new water needs and reduce its reliance on dwindling groundwater reserves. Of the strategic trio, water conservation is an approach utilized by the entire hierarchy of water users, from industrial and agricultural users to individual households using water to cook, grow trees and shrubs, and wash the dog.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.