The Hydrology Division of the Arizona Department of Water Resources has been in the process over the last two years of updating the geology used in the Department’s Salt River Valley Regional Groundwater Flow Model. The geology update is the first phase of an overall plan to update the model’s geologic structure, numerical grid and extend the model’s steady-state and transient calibration periods. Releasing the provisional geologic report at this time allows us to provide the new data and analysis to water providers and other model users prior to the completion of the overall model update. Please be advised that the geologic data and interpretations that are included in this report and accompanying database are provisional at this time and subject to revision.

As a result of high growth rates, physically and legally limited water supplies, drought, economic constraints, and relatively little comprehensive water resource planning and management, water supplies are stressed in some parts of Arizona. The Arizona Department of Water Resources has collected and synthesized currently available water-related information for the State of Arizona into a “water atlas,” organized by planning area.

Realizing the need for drought preparedness in Arizona, a Governor’s Drought Task Force was created in 2003 and the Arizona Drought Preparedness Plan developed. The plan was adopted in 2004 and its continued implementation ordered in 2007. It established a framework to monitor drought, improve understanding of drought impacts, and determine mechanisms for limiting future vulnerability. The Arizona Department of Water Resources coordinates these activities and prepares the Arizona Drought Preparedness Annual Report each year.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources manages the state’s water supply. Water management includes a wide variety of activities that are intended to protect and preserve the water supply. Examples of these activities include licensing well drillers, assuring the safety of dams, and developing mandatory conservation requirements for all water use sectors in Active Management Areas, protecting the state’s Colorado River allocation and facilitating Indian water rights negotiations among tribal representatives, local interests, federal and state officials and members of Congress.

For a century, Arizona has pursued prosperity through outward expansion of its urban areas. In metropolitan Phoenix and elsewhere, “growth” has meant developing raw land with new houses, new shopping centers, and new industrial parks--and the metropolitan “frontier” has moved farther outward from downtown every year. This has not been uniformly true, of course. Some cities--Phoenix, Tempe, and Scottsdale especially--have been grappling with the question of revitalizing older urban neighborhoods for many years. But the “outside game” has been the predominant development pattern in the Valley of Sun for many decades. And the Phoenix region has played this game better than one might think, creating many high-quality master-planned communities, protecting lots of open space, using impact fees to build good infrastructure. In other words, Phoenix has used the “outside game” to create a region so attractive it continues to be one of the fastest-growing metropolises in America. But in order for cities to play a good inside game, Arizona must get serious about urban revitalization. And that will require big changes.

In the early 1990s, the criminal justice debate in America was dominated by phrases like “three strikes and you’re out,” “juveniles who commit adult crime should serve adult time,” and “lock ’em up and throw away the key.” In the latter half of the 1990s, however, the dialogue has shifted. Recognizing the enormous social and capital costs associated with locking people up and “throwing away the key,” many – including some of the strongest get-tough-on-crime advocates just a few years ago – have turned to a different concept: prevention.

Many of the influential voices in Greater Phoenix have come to believe in the power of prevention. In late 1996, a diverse coalition of local leadership from the business community, law enforcement, city and county government, academia, and the court system came together to create the Phoenix Violence Prevention Initiative.