Boulder-based Lincoln Institute fellow Peter Pollock is among the planning experts participating in Urbanization, Uncertainty and Water: Planning for Arizona's Second Hundred Years, a major conference sponsored by the the Water Resources Research Center at the University of Arizona, with the Arizona State University Morrison Institute for Public Policy.
A workshop beginning today is hosted by Western Lands and Communities, a joint venture of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Sonoran Institute, for the purposes of reviewing a report being discussed at the conference, "Watering the Sun Corridor."
"A key constraint to urban development in the Intermountain West is water availabilty, with scarcity expected to become more acute as the climate changes," said Armando Carbonell, senior fellow and chairman of the Department of Planning and Urban Form at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. "This conference will engage a diverse group of civic, business, and political leaders in a vital dialogue on water policy choices that will affect the future sustainability of the region."
Managing water resources has been a top issue in Arizona since the state was first settled. Today finite supplies and uncertainty makes planning for the future more complex and difficult, as Arizona's urban areas continue to grow from Greater Phoenix to Tucson, where the conference is being held. At issue are economic success and the quality of life those in Arizona currently enjoy.
Western Lands and Communities is concerned with policy issues related to land conservation and urban development in the Intermountain West.