Watch the Babbitt Center signature video to learn more about our approach to solving water management and land use integration challenges.
Our Work
Real-world understanding, research and training, and collaborative partners who share resources are valuable catalysts that strengthen a community’s ability to secure its water future. Our work is focused throughout the seven Colorado River Basin states, binationally across the basin into Mexico, and with 30 Native American tribes, boosting communities’ resilience and building a global exchange of transformative ideas with other arid and semiarid regions.
Learn More About Our WorkFeatured Programs and Projects
Integrating land use and water management requires innovative approaches and partnerships. The Babbitt Center works closely with governmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academic institutions, and business leaders to address challenges and harness opportunities. We conduct research and develop tools, promote best practices, provide training, and facilitate partnerships to guide decision-making for sustainable management of land and water resources.
Colorado River Basin Map
The Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy produced an updated Colorado River Basin Map in partnership with the Center for Geospatial Solutions. This map showcases the geography and hydrography of the Colorado River Basin, corrects inconsistencies in contemporary maps of the region, and provides water managers, tribal leaders, educators, and other stakeholders with an updated resource as they confront critical issues related to growth, resource management, and sustainability.
See the Map
Growing Water Smart
Historically, planning for water resources and land use have been conducted separately. Yet, where and how we build greatly impacts water supply and demand and the quality of water that supports our ecosystems. The Growing Water Smart program helps community leaders integrate water and land use planning to further the sustainability and resilience of their community. Multidisciplinary community teams of key decision-makers and personnel, such as elected officials, planning commissioners, water resource managers, land use planners, and economic and community developers, come together in facilitated work sessions to: 1) set a workshop intention, 2) evaluate current water smart policies and practices, 3) develop community water efficiency goals, 4) make the case for water smart change in their communities, and 5) create a team action plan that identifies tasks and timelines for meeting the community’s water efficiency goals.
Learn More About Growing Water Smart
The Hardest-Working River in the West: A StoryMap of the Colorado
Explore the key water sustainability issues in the Colorado River Basin through data and stories updated regularly. Although not the largest or longest river in the world, the Colorado River connects a rich array of social and ecological communities along its 1,450-mile journey from its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to its mouth in the Gulf of California, Mexico.
See the StoryMap
Sowing Seeds: How Scenario Planning Can Help Agricultural Communities Build a Resilient Future
In March 2023, a consortium of Mesa County, Colorado, residents gathered to use a process called exploratory scenario planning, or XSP, to envision a more resilient future for their community and agricultural economy. The Mesa Conservation District hosted the workshop, developed by the Babbitt Center in partnership with Lincoln Institute’s Scenario Planning team and Arizona State University’s Arizona Water Innovation Initiative. XSP helps communities plan for an uncertain future by exploring multiple possibilities of what might happen. The practice helps planners, community members, and other stakeholders consider various futures and how to effectively plan with various driving forces at play. XSP encourages a wide range of perspectives and brings diverse voices into the discussion to help create plans that community leaders and stakeholders can implement.
Watch the Documentary
Perspectives from the Field: The Future of Agriculture
The Colorado River is pivotal in supporting agricultural production throughout the basin, not only contributing significantly to the economies and livelihoods of rural communities but also supporting our national food supply and global food security.
This two-page summary synthesizes the findings of the Babbitt Center report “Agriculture in the Colorado River Basin States: Challenges and Implications for the Future,” which explores the main issues farmers and ranchers in the region face due to weather and water supply changes, and how insights from those most impacted can be used to craft effective solutions.
Read the Executive Summary
