Description
As the American Southwest faces its deepest drought in history, this book explores the provocative notion of “water bankruptcy” with a view towards emphasizing the diversity and complexity of water issues in this region. It bridges between the narratives of growth and the strategies or policies adopted to pursue competing agendas and circumvent the inevitable. A window of opportunity provided by this current long-term drought may be used to induce change by dealing with threats that derive from imbalances between growth patterns and available resources, the primary cause of scarcity.
A first of its kind, this book was developed through close collaboration of a broad range of natural scientists, social scientists, and resource managers from Europe and United States. It constitutes a collective elaboration of a transdisciplinary approach to unveiling the inner workings of how water was fought for, allocated and used in the American Southwest, with a focus on Arizona. Specifically, it offers an innovative scientific perspective that produces a critical diagnostic evaluation of water management, with a particular view to identifying risks for the Tucson region that is facing continuous urban sprawl and economic growth.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1 The idea of a transatlantic dialogue
2 Organization of the book and mind map
Maps
Socio-historic perspectives on water in the American southwest
3 The Tucson basin
4 Laws of the river
5 Water for a new America
6 Sharing the Colorado River
7 The making of water policy
Narratives of urban growth
8 The social logic of urban sprawl
9 Water and urban development challenges of urban growth
10 Comprehensive urban planning
11 Potential impacts of the continuing urbanization on regional climate
Ecosystem services and biodiversity
12 Quantification of water-related ecosystem services
13 Qualitative assessment of supply and demand of ecosystem services
14 The role of biodiversity in the hydrological cycle
Water use and groundwater management
15 Implications of spatially neutral groundwater management
16 Groundwater dynamics
17 Alternative water sources towards increased resilience
18 Differentiated approaches of groundwater management
Stakeholders’ perspectives
19 Presentation
20 Texts
Conclusion
21 Bringing all the stories together: Beyond the Tucson case study
22 Next steps: Collaborative research and training towards transdisciplinarity
