RSS 1.0Arroyo
ABOUT THE COLLECTION
Arroyo, a newsletter focusing on a single topic of timely interest to Arizona, is published annually in the spring.
Recent Submissions
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Arroyo Winter 2007Faced with the significant challenge of groundwater overdraft, Arizona adopted groundwater recharge as a water management priority. This 12-page publication discusses early interest in recharge, describing legislative efforts to encourage and regulate projects and identifying significant issues relating to recharge such as water quality implications and control of subsidence as well as focusing on ongoing recharge projects.
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Arroyo 2011The process of removing salts from water to produce fresh water is known as desalination. Available technology allows seawater or brackish groundwater, which can be found in large quantities, to be converted into clean, usable water. In water scare locations this has the potential to greatly increase the fresh water supply.
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Arroyo Winter 2008Urbanization, channelization, ground-water depletion, irrigated agriculture, and a variety of other activities have significantly affected many of Arizona's rivers. This 12-page Arroyo issue looks at many river restoration and enhancement projects in Arizona and the issues, partnerships, benefits and water sources characterizing each effort.
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Arroyo 2013The Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) has just released its 2013 annual Arroyo – a 12-page newsletter devoted to a single topic of timely interest to Arizona. This year, the topic is “Contaminants of Emerging Concern in Water,” a subject that has raised questions from the public and challenged water managers and regulators across the country. Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) are “substances we use every day for all kinds of purposes, which get flushed, washed or otherwise discarded and end up in water and soil.” They are being detected in trace amounts in the water supply, raising the need to know what risks they represent and what, if anything, should be done about them. The new Arroyo brings together current information and presents definitions, examples and study results, while describing efforts to tackle the issue. The WRRC publishes Arroyo each spring, and initial research is carried out the previous summer by the winner of the Montgomery & Associates Summer Writing Internship. The 2012 intern was Madhumitha Raghav, a Ph.D. student in Environmental Engineering at the University of Arizona.
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Arroyo 2010Water and energy are fundamental components of our 21st century life, but they can no longer be considered separately. Just as producing energy consumes water, pumping, treating and distributing water requires energy. In other words, water is an energy issue; energy is a water issue. Called the water-energy nexus, this interrelationship is beginning to receive the attention it merits. This Arroyo aims to provide comprehensive and timely information to support the public discussion of this important topic.
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Arroyo 2012The U.S-Mexico border is not only where two countries meet, but where different cultures face a common need for effective and sustainable use of the available resources. The management of resources and environmental hazards in this region is challenging. Agencies from both countries are addressing the challenge by participating in bi-national efforts to resolve the issues of water and air contamination, water resource allocation, and solid and hazardous waste disposal in the region.
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Arroyo Vol. 7 No. 1 (Summer 1993)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.
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Arroyo Vol. 10 No. 4 (December 1999)Recently very much center stage and in the spotlight, water conservation seems to be an idea whose time has come. If, however, we define water conservation as the careful use of water to better maintain current supplies, then water conservation is not a recent development. What is relatively new is our current perception of water conservation.
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Arroyo Vol. 10 No. 2 (March 1998)Many U.S. citizens believe that thanks to our advanced technology and enlightened public policy we can consume without risk the food and water that are readily available to most of us, as citizens of a rich and privileged country. Some of those who subscribe to this buoyant and comforting attitude, however, may have lately experienced second thoughts. Because of various recent and widely reported incidents, many people are feeling concern about the quality and safety of our food and water. This is not surprising; some of these incidents have resulted in serious, widespread sickness, even death.
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Arroyo Vol. 9 No. 3 (October 1996)Because the Endangered Species Act is concerned with the effects of human activities on the natural environment, the law covers a lot of ground, both real and figurative. It can regulate large geographic areas of desert, mountains and forests, as well as have wide legal implications affecting a range of human activities: political, social, economic, and cultural.
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Arroyo Vol. 9 No. 4 (March 1997)Consider the phrase "constructed wetlands." Although not a contradiction in terms, the two words make up an unlikely combination. Construction implies a project fabricated and built by humans. What then has construction to do with wetlands, natural areas formed by the complex workings of geology, biology and hydrology?
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Arroyo Vol. 9 No. 2 (June 1996)Those who labor in the water resources field may at times feel their efforts to be slighted. Whereas military glories are marked by public monuments - statues, plaques, a cannon in the park - milestones in water resource developments are represented by laws, public policies, and court decisions. To small boys and most adults, a cannon in the park is more intriguing.
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Arroyo Vol. 8 No. 2 (April 1995)Self-improvement is as American as apple pie, with wide ranging educational programs abounding throughout the land. The abundance and variety of such educational programs convey a mixed message. Obviously a sentiment is widely shared that there is room for improvement in many areas. At the same time, the existence of these programs represents a sense of optimism that education can remedy troublesome deficiencies and inadequacies.
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Arroyo Vol. 8 No. 4 (December 1995)In our democratic form of government, the people or, rather, we, the people, are said to be in charge, the ultimate source of political power. To believe that the people are in control is reassuring, to the extent that we are capable of knowing our best interests. And who among us claims not to know what is best for him or for her?
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Arroyo Vol. 8 No. 1 (December 1994)According to the Bible, on the second day God gathered the waters so that dry land would appear. Before that time all was surface water. Surface water was all. With the appearance of land, the earth's hydrology became complicated. Groundwater thus formed, and a quandary begotten that challenges hydrologists and lawmakers to this day.
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Arroyo Vol. 9 No. 1 (March 1996)Expecting safe, drinkable water to flow from household taps once was an unquestioned assumption. This assumption was founded upon various acts of faith - in progress, technology, and the local water utility. For many people, however, this comforting assumption no longer holds true. We of little faith are becoming wary of tap water, questioning its quality and suspicious of its health effects.
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Arroyo Vol. 11 No. 1 (May 2002)When the state’s urban dwellers think of rural water resources – if they think of them at all – they most likely think of recreational opportunities, like fishing, boating and camping. Residents of rural areas of the state, however, are confronting a wide range of water issues, with ensuring sufficient supplies being the most critical issue. The rural water management strategy that is adopted must reflect the physical, social and cultural characteristics unique to the non-urban regions of Arizona.
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Arroyo Vol. 7 No. 4 (June 1994)"A fish out of water" is a figure of speech expressing incongruity. At first sight, "Fish farming in the desert" might seem to express a similar sense of dislocation, even futility. But, in fact, fish farming or aquaculture is attracting interest in Arizona. Its supporters, few in number but committed, believe that aquaculture, a field relatively new to the state, has the potential to become a viable Arizona industry.
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Arroyo Vol. 6 No. 4 (Spring 1993)Tecumseh, Shawnee Chief, expressed bewilderment that intruding whites expected Indians to sell land. "Sell a country!" he exclaimed, "Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?"
