Water Resources Information at the County Level Discussed at WRRC Brown Bag
The WRRC’s 2022 Fall Semester Brown Bag Webinar series kicked off on August 24 with a presentation on the Arizona Water Factsheet initiative, focusing on the recently published Pima County Water Factsheet. The presentation featured WRRC Program Manager Michael Seronde and Kathy Chavez, water policy manager at the Pima County Office of Sustainability and Conservation. Their presentation, titled “Pima County Water Factsheet: Tailoring Meaningful Water Information at the County Scale for and with Local Stakeholders,” started with an overview of the initiative’s origins and described some of the challenges with developing a concise and regionally relevant water resource factsheet. They emphasized the importance of local stakeholder input to ensure the factsheets are responsive to the needs and unique characteristics of the county. Kathy, who was a member of the Technical Advisory Committee who guided the development of the Pima County Factsheet, walked attendees through the content of the factsheet section by section, highliting data sources, challenges, and key water topics.
The engaged audience asked many excellent questions that underscored some of the key aspects of the factsheet initiative. For example, why focus on county level water information? In response, Michael and Kathy noted that the Arizona Water Factsheets fill a gap in available resources. There are no other concise resources for water information that are specific to each county in Arizona. They went on to mention some of the other excellent resources that provide detailed water resource information, but at different scales. ADWR’s Active Management Area Data Dashboard, is one such resource. Another complimentary, but distinct source for water information mentioned during the webinar is the Kyl Center’s Arizona Water Blueprint. Factsheets for additional counties are underway starting with the Cochise County Water Factsheet, which is in its final rounds of review. Next up are Graham and Greenlee Counties.
The WRRC has a full schedule of Brown Bag Webinars and other events planned for the fall semester. Next week will feature the webinar "The Rio Reimagined Initiative: River and Community Revitalization Along the Salt - Gila River Corridor." The panel will include an update on the initiative and featuring coalition partners. More information about this and all upcoming events can be found at the link below.