Quenching Our Thirst: Constructing future scenarios of water in Phoenix, AZ with stakeholder values and sustainability principles

The greater Phoenix area is challenged by a number of sustainability issues related to water resources. Existing supplies are over-allocated and may decrease with climate change while population continues to grow. Water research is prevalent in the region, focusing, in the past, on water supply under varying climatic and population conditions and the water-intensity of different human activities and land-uses. As a boundary organization, the Decision Center for a Desert City at Arizona State University takes a broader approach to understanding water, including identifying and analyzing relationships between actors, institutions, infrastructure and the environment, associated with the acquisition, delivery, use and discharge or reuse of water resources. This research builds on this systemic, actor-oriented approach to explore the normative questions, what do stakeholders in the greater Phoenix area want from their city and how can water resources be governed to meet the needs and desires of the growing, changing population sustainably? To answer these questions a multi-methodology is used that includes expert interviews; a survey of decision-makers on their values about water resources in the future; participatory modeling of survey results; and a hybrid qualitative-quantitative, participatory, sustainability assessment of resulting value-based future scenarios. Preliminary results presented in the poster include a detailed analysis of convergence and divergence in stakeholder values related to future water governance and use and plausible future scenarios of water in central Arizona derived from stakeholder values.