Impact Water - Arizona

Impact Water - Arizona is playing a vital role in ASU's Arizona Water Innovation Initiative, fostering community awareness and involvement to tackle water challenges and propel solutions in the state. By collaborating across diverse expertise and resources, this program is sparking knowledge, inspiring engagement, and instigating transformative change for a more secure and resilient water supply.

The Impact Water - Arizona program directly funds projects and supports ASU faculty and staff in implementing engagement activities and developing use-inspired research and tools to address Arizona's water challenges. Spearheaded by the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, the program operates in partnership with the Kyl Center for Water Policy and the Decision Theater.

Project dashboard

impact water az booth with staff

Four key workstreams

The program’s strategic approach to supporting projects involves four key workstreams designed to catalyze positive community impact, steering Arizona towards a sustainable water future. Prospective participants are encouraged to align their proposed projects with at least one of these workstreams, each playing a crucial role.

Engage | Empower | Activate

Innovation and Impact

The theory of change for Impact Water - Arizona is to catalyze understanding, awareness, and knowledge of Arizona’s water challenges and solutions, and to develop innovative and immersive approaches to public engagement that create personal meaning and inspire community action.

These two approaches build public will and institutional capacity for sustainable water resources management and increased resilience and security to expand economies while protecting natural and cultural legacies.

Two people at an arizona water innovation and impact event

Team

Featured Projects

Agriculture & Water in the West: A Community Takes Charge

We are engaging agricultural communities in the Colorado River Basin to explore and address unique issues related to uncertain water supplies and demands and introducing concepts of Anticipatory Governance, including Exploratory Scenario Planning, as tools for decision-making under high uncertainty. This project is being led by ASU’s Decision Center for a Desert City in partnership with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy - Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy and Consortium for Scenario Planning as part of the Inclusive Engagement & Immersive Experiences workstream. Watch the full length film here.

Water Narratives and Societal Change

The Water Narratives and Societal Change course explores impactful water narratives and storytelling, equipping students with essential skills in narrative writing. Students are gaining in-depth knowledge of key water issues and mastering successful approaches to effectively express complex water-related topics. The project is led by ASU’s College of Global Futures in partnership with the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts as part of the Immersive Experiences workstream. Other courses include Music, Nature and Sustainability, Art and Ecology, Introduction to Digital Sound, and Introduction to Storytelling, Narrative and Emerging Media. Learn more

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Drylab 2023: The Challenge

The Drylab challenge offers creative and innovative ways to approach our everyday relationship with water with a new prompt and an action to take every day for 30 days. The challenge is increasing awareness about water use and ways to reduce water consumption, leading to a social and transformational shift. Content creation can be transformed into a curriculum, with materials available in Spanish & English. The project is being led by ASU’s School of Sustainability and School of Art in partnership with the Desert Humanities Initiative as part of the Inclusion and Engagement & Immersive Experience workstream. Learn more

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Arizona Water Chatbot

The Water Chatbot is enhancing access to reliable information on water-related topics, improving decision-making by providing quick and efficient responses to water-related inquiries as well as reducing the need for manual research and analysis. The collection of user-generated questions is in turn being compiled to inform further development of tools and messages. The project is led by ASU’s College of Integrative Sciences and Arts as part of the Water Futures & Water and Technology Translation workstream. Learn more

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