Tucson Water

Rainwater harvesting design techniques are heralded as tools for building a sustainable community and resilience against climate change impacts. When rainwater harvesting strategies fall into disrepair or are designed improperly, they may inadvertently become sources of mosquitoes. We hypothesize that well-maintained green infrastructure design strategies have the greatest impact on conservation while limiting the negative consequences of mosquitoes. If green infrastructure is to be used as an adaptation technique, then it is important to better understand when it works best. Partnering with Tucson Water, which is responsible for some green infrastructure installation and Pima County Vector control represents two key stakeholders in addressing whether this is maladaptation.

Adaptation in water management is a greatly revered yet poorly understood goal and concept. The U.S. suffers from what's been called an “adaptation deficit”, but there is little comprehensive research on how to advance adaptation. Previous research has found that case studies of how adaptation is actually being delivered, and barriers to effective delivery (e.g., information, capacity, institutions), is a critical missing component of existing adaptation research. This project addresses this gap both theoretically and methodologically in four study sites in the Arizona-Sonora region of the U.S-Mexico border: Tucson, AZ; Yuma, AZ and the Colorado River delta; the Upper Gulf of California (from Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, north); and Hermosillo, Sonora. The key research questions guiding this project include: what is the role of networks in governance and the implications for using climate knowledge; what are the most effective climate services to support efforts to adapt; and how can decision-support tools build institutional adaptive capacity. Researchers examine these questions via interactive semi-structured interviews, a webinar series on the border climate, and a scientist-stakeholder symposium. Project outputs will include pilot development of an institutional adaptive capacity index; presentation of results at professional meetings, papers in peer-reviewed journals, workshop and symposia reports, the Webinar series, quarterly production of the Transborder Climate newsletter, and a project website.

This project involves economic evaluations of the effects of actual and proposed climate change mitigation policies. It compares and contrasts state energy and carbon emission intensity and climate mitigation policies, seeking to examine how state resource endowments affect policy development and resource use. It also examines strategies to sequester carbon or reduce carbon emissions (particularly through adoption of renewable energy technologies).

Persistent drought and climate change affect water and energy costs, and hence choices made by farms, cities and industrial water and energy users, as well as energy and water providers’ operations. This project examines potential climate change and variability adaptation strategies related to water and energy in the Colorado River and Rio Grande Basins, including northwestern Mexico. Researchers are investigating how climate influences the market price of water and developing a menu of water and energy supply reliability tools with guidelines for using these tools.

In 2009, scientists affiliated with CLIMAS began an occasional lecture series with Tucson Water staff about ongoing work related to climate and water management. The presentations were designed to share state-of-the-art research and solicit input from Tucson Water staff on how the research may be useful for their operations. The main goals of the project were to share cutting-edge science with interested Tucson Water staff and to foster discussions that help us understand the research that is useful to Tucson Water operations.