Water Resources Research Center Conference Highlights Cross-Boundary Collaboration

When Jesuit missionary Eusebio Kino came north from what is now Mexico in the late 1600s, he saw the same thing you see now as you near the southern edge of Tucson – irrigated farmland.

The fields were maintained, then as now, by the Tohono O’odham, the indigenous people who have lived and farmed along the Santa Cruz River for thousands of years.

There were no political boundaries then, no international border, no state of Arizona, no tribal borders or counties. The Santa Cruz was a perennial river then, and the Tohono O’odham tapped it to irrigate squash, tepary beans and other crops.

But the water did not belong to them, Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon Jose said during a recent gathering of water professionals at the University of Arizona. They still see it that way.

Image

“It is my belief that there is no person who owns water. It is a gift from the creator,” Jose said at the annual conference of the university’s Water Resources Research Center (WRRC), which is part of Arizona Cooperative Extension. More than 900 people attended the conference either in person or via Zoom.

“We don’t own land. We don’t own water. We don’t own Mother Nature. We don’t see any borders. We don’t see any international lines. We are about building bridges, not walls, bridges of humanity,” he said.

But boundaries do exist now, and that means that solving problems concerning water requires collaboration among national, state and local governments, corporations, non-profits, academic institutions and indigenous tribes.

Seventy-two aquifers – underground natural reservoirs – cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Along that same border there are scores of political boundaries. There are four U.S. states and six Mexican states, and 44 U.S. counties and 80 Mexican municipalities.

That complex patchwork – in one of the driest regions in the western hemisphere – makes collaboration on water vital to preserving our environment and way of life, prompting the theme of the WRRC conference: “Shared Borders, Shared Waters: Working Together in Times of Scarcity.”

“We have to collaborate across state lines and sometimes within states, so this concept of working across borders is a very broad one,” said longtime WRRC Director Sharon Megdal, a globally recognized leader in water policy research.

She shared some factors that contribute to successful “water diplomacy,” including a mechanism for cooperation, mutual respect, stakeholder involvement, good communication, persistence and patience, leadership and meals with collaborators.

Water scientists generally see the world as a mosaic of watersheds and aquifers. But most of the rest of the world sees a mosaic of political divisions, said Aaron Wolf, a geography professor from University of Oregon who spoke at the conference.

The general belief is that water conflicts are widespread, inevitable and intractable. But research shows that most people who share water basins cooperate, he said.

"Collaboration is the foundation of water policy and management discussions in which Arizona is on the cutting edge," Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs told conference attendees.

One outcome from those conversations is a report from the Governor’s Water Policy Council, whose members Hobbs appointed in 2023. The report lays out a framework for protecting rural water supplies, many of which lie outside the state’s Active Management Areas (AMA) designated by the 1980 Arizona Groundwater Management Act. 

The state also recently created the Willcox AMA in southern Arizona to protect groundwater there, and the binational Arizona-Mexico Commission’s water and environment committee is working with the state to improve and protect water quality and preserve the San Pedro River, which flows across the border and has been called the most endangered river in the nation, the governor said.

“All of these water policies are critical to the success of Arizona’s future,” Hobbs said

“They all rely on cooperation across borders, whether the borders are groundwater basins, state lines in the Colorado River basin, cities and towns sharing a regional aquifer or our shared border with Sonora. Water is a resource that crosses lines and boundaries and requires collaboration and perseverance to safeguard."

The governor also highlighted tribal collaborations on the Governor’s Water Policy Council and Inter Tribal Council of Arizona.

“It’s important to have tribal members, not just so we can say they were at the discussions, but having them there as active participants … I’m going to make sure that tribes are a critical voice in water decisions moving forward,” Hobbs told conference attendees.

Other partnerships highlighted during the conference include international data sharing, ongoing interstate negotiations over Colorado River water, partnerships with Canadian government and private corporations.

Arizona has a long history of cooperation on water issues, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon, Hobbs said.

“Arizona truly is on the national and global stage when it comes to adapting to tough water challenges and finding solutions,” she said.

“We are thriving here in this desert environment, and it is because of innovation and leadership that started decades ago in our state. This is a priority to me because it is foundational for our success as a state – our continued economic growth, our continued ability for every Arizonan to thrive.”

You can view the presentations from the conference on the WRRC website.