{"id":78183,"date":"2026-06-23T10:38:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T17:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=78183"},"modified":"2026-06-23T10:38:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T17:38:58","slug":"securing-the-future-of-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/securing-the-future-of-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Securing the future of water in northern Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"

Water shapes every aspect of our lives, yet communities around the world are facing growing challenges in securing this vital resource. Climate change, population\u00a0growth\u00a0and rising demand are placing unprecedented pressure on water systems, creating complex problems that require fresh thinking and collaborative solutions.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"People<\/a>
Cynthia Butler from Friends of the Verde River discusses community science for water quality monitoring with WLI participants at Beaver Creek.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In northern Arizona, severe drought, over-pumped aquifers, a lack of groundwater regulation and deep historical inequities in infrastructure have created a unique mismatch between supply and demand. Recognizing these challenges, a group of professionals has come together with a shared vision: <\/span>to\u00a0create\u00a0a\u00a0space where emerging water leaders can connect\u00a0and learn.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0<\/span>Water Leadership Institute in northern Arizona (WLI)<\/span><\/a> is an initiative in partnership with three organizations: the Water Society and Policy Lab at NAU, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Arizona Water for All (AW4A) initiative at Arizona State University. <\/span>Lucero Radonic<\/span><\/b>, professor in the\u202fDepartment of\u202fAnthropology and head of the Water, Society and Policy Research Lab, said the WLI started in California in 2013 and was later adapted for southern Arizona in 2024, where it is coordinated by EDF and local partners. Building on the success and momentum of that inaugural Arizona cohort, they began exploring the possibility of piloting a WLI for the Colorado Plateau<\/span>, a unique ecological region spanning northern Arizona, southern Utah, southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>The idea\u00a0was\u00a0to create a learning space for emerging water leaders to develop the type of skills that they need\u00a0to\u00a0address the challenges of water security in their region,\u201d Radonic said. \u201cEDF had worked on a couple of these\u00a0Water\u00a0Leadership\u00a0Institutes in southern Arizona,\u00a0in Tucson and Nogales, but at some point, we all came together with the idea of creating a\u00a0pilot program for the\u00a0Water\u00a0Leadership Institute\u00a0in\u00a0northern Arizona.\u00a0Since\u00a0the beginning, our\u00a0core\u00a0understanding was that whatever we created\u00a0needed\u00a0to address the needs and\u00a0interests\u00a0of this region\u00a0since the Colorado Plateau is very different from the Sonoran Desert, both in terms of the eco-hydrology and in terms of the actors that we have\u00a0in this area.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To start, Radonic said her lab interviewed 45 people in the region, from municipal water operators to tribal environmental professionals, ranchers and people who work at environmental organizations, to identify what attributes and skills they saw in effective water leaders today and what they believed was needed to grow leadership moving forward. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"People<\/a>
Mariessa Fowler gives a presentation on how to ethically engage Indigenous communities in water work.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Radonic\u00a0has been working closely with\u00a0<\/span>Kait Bieber<\/span><\/b>,<\/span>\u00a0senior specialist for EDF\u2019s Resilient Water Systems\u00a0team;\u00a0<\/span>Miriam Nelson<\/span><\/b>, program coordinator for AW4A;\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Mariessa Fowler<\/span><\/b>,<\/span>\u00a0consultant from AW4A.\u00a0She said all three\u00a0have been instrumental in coordinating a diverse lineup of speakers for the four-day Water Leadership Institute. Bieber,\u00a0Fowler\u00a0and Nelson are all NAU\u00a0alumnae.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Water Leadership Institute launched on May 30 in Flagstaff, where 15 early- and mid-career water professionals participated in workshops and discussions with three goals in mind: increasing awareness of cross-sector perspectives, improving communication confidence among those who attended and improving confidence in dealing with uncertainty. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe future of water is uncertain, so the long-term goal is to create a cohort of water professionals who in the future can work collaboratively to bring water security across the Colorado Plateau,\u201d Radonic said. \u201cWe have created an awesome space where people from different water sectors are coming together and having conversations about the future of water, while learning different skills, from how to facilitate a meeting to how to communicate complex legal concepts to a general audience.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Storage<\/a>
John Snickers from the Arizona Water Company discusses the water supply system for Sedona and the role of trust when building infrastructure.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The\u00a0WLI\u2019s\u00a0second session\u00a0was held in the\u00a0Sedona area, where participants\u00a0learned how\u00a0the Arizona\u00a0Department of Environmental Quality is working with\u00a0Friends of the Verde River\u00a0to\u00a0monitor\u00a0and restore water systems in\u00a0the Verde\u00a0River Watershed.\u00a0Following the hands-on workshop on Beaver Creek,\u00a0participants visited the East Sedona Storage Tank,\u00a0where they learned from the Arizona Water Company about the decades-long process to build this underground tank for potable water provisioning.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Their next\u00a0session\u00a0was an overnight trip to Page,\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>Glen Canyon\u00a0Dam<\/span>\u00a0and Lake Powell.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"People<\/a>
WLI Participants visited the Carl Hayden Visitor Center to discuss the history of the Glen Canyon Dam and the challenges the Colorado River Basin is facing today.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe talked about water security from a systemic perspective and visited Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. We covered the impacts of the drought and how the high demand on Lake Powell is lowering the water to critical levels,\u201d Radonic said. \u201cEric Stanfield, who works for the Navajo Nation, joined us and gave a talk about the Glen Canyon Adaptive Management Program, which is a program that involves tribes in decision-making for the management of the Glen Canyon Dam, which is a big shift toward a more inclusive form of water management in our region.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The conversations and feedback gathered during the four-day gathering of the Water Leadership Institute will\u00a0be evaluated by\u00a0Radonic\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Grace Horner<\/span><\/b>, an\u00a0undergraduate student\u00a0in\u00a0the School of Earth and Sustainability,\u00a0who works at the lab.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Radonic\u00a0said the future of WLI\u00a0is full of possibilities.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are hoping to be able to\u00a0build new partnerships and\u00a0fundraise\u00a0to continue this program,\u201d Radonic said.\u00a0\u201cThere\u00a0are some amazing leadership programs in this region, and we hope we can supplement those programs. There\u00a0is a lot of excitement from organizations in this region who see the importance of\u00a0fostering\u00a0stronger\u00a0leadership that focuses on cross-sectoral collaboration\u00a0for water issues.\u00a0To ensure water security in our complex, multicultural, multi-jurisdictional region, we need to be able to listen and understand other perspectives and communicate across sectors.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/a>Mariana Laas | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-5050 | mariana.laas@nau.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Water shapes every aspect of our lives, yet communities around the world are facing growing challenges in securing this vital resource. Climate change, population\u00a0growth\u00a0and rising demand are placing unprecedented pressure on water systems, creating complex problems that require fresh thinking and collaborative solutions.\u00a0 In northern Arizona, severe drought, over-pumped aquifers, a lack of groundwater regulation…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3019,"featured_media":78188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78183"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78223,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78183\/revisions\/78223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}