In practice, there are a number of challenges associated with formal consideration of the environment in water planning in large parts of the Desert LCC region. In Arizona, for example, there is no legal requirement to include the environment in water management or planning efforts (Megdal et al. 201 0). Therefore, there is little incentive to develop the additional tools and resources required to include the environment as a water demand sector. Appropriate inclusion of the environment into water planning requires conducting planning at a scale and geography that matches regional hydrology rather than political boundaries. Therefore, without explicit policy guidance from state government, regional stakeholders must proactively engage in collaborative, voluntary water planning. New planning tools and models are needed to effectively and consistently include the environment as a demand sector in large scale water planning. Furthermore, other considerations related to human and environmental water demands also need to be integrated into water planning and management decisions.
The University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center (WRRC), the Gila Watershed Partnership (GWP), and Arizona Cooperative Extension (Extension) propose to address these needs through the development of tools to support planning for water resources management in the Upper Gila River Watershed (hereafter Gila Watershed; primarily located in Graham and Greenlee Counties, Arizona) and other watersheds within the Desert LCC region.
