The Greater Phoenix Blue Chip provides quarterly consensus projections on general economic indicators and key construction measures from economists and real estate analysts and executives in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The construction forecasts are compiled in cooperation with Elliott D. Pollack and Company, a leading economic and real estate consulting firm based in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The study reported here was designed to examine the impact of background meteorological conditions on the propagation of noise from urban freeways in the Phoenix area. The aim was to understand and predict how sound waves emanating from highways respond to the vertical profiles of atmospheric temperature gradients and velocity shear, so that sound measurements can be interpreted with regard to the environmental variability.

This instrument is intended to help schools at all levels of performance assess the strengths and limitations of their instructional practices and organizational conditions. It serves three primary functions:
1. as a blueprint to communicate the high expectations of the Superintendent of Public Instruction for all Arizona schools;
2. as an internal self-assessment tool to be used by the educational community at the local level; and
3. as an external assessment tool to be used by ADE Solutions Teams.

This document is intended to help schools identify the strengths and limitations of their instructional practices and organizational conditions. All Arizona schools will use this document to assess their overall performance. The document serves three primary functions: 1) as a blueprint to communicate the high expectations of the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction for all Arizona schools; 2) as a self-assessment tool to be used by the educational community at the local level; and 3) as an external assessment tool to be used by ADE School Improvement Teams. This document may also be used in other appropriate external assessment activities. The document is not to be used for staff evaluation. Instead, the focus is placed on assessing the effectiveness of the school for the purpose of sustained improvement.

The Lower San Pedro Groundwater Basin (LSP) baseline groundwater quality study was conducted by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality in 2000. Located in southeastern Arizona, this semiarid basin is drained by the San Pedro and Gila Rivers. The LSP is a rural landscape with scattered towns and two
extensive copper mining and processing operations. Groundwater from three aquifers (floodplain, unconfined basin-fill, and confined basin-fill or artesian) and fractured mountain hardrock is the principle source of water supply. For this study, 63 groundwater sites were sampled for inorganic constituents. In addition, fewer sites were also sampled for Volatile Organic Compounds (25), radiochemistry (19), radon (19), and pesticide (2) analyses. Eighteen (18) percent of sample sites had concentrations of at least one constituent that exceeded a health-based, Federal or State water-quality standard.

In March 1997, the Arizona Game and Fish Department and New Mexico Department of Game and Fish entered into a Conservation Agreement with other state, local, and federal cooperators, with voluntary participation by many private individuals, to conserve the jaguar (Panthera onca) along borderlands of Arizona and New Mexico and to stimulate parallel efforts in Mexico. The agencies believed that if strong partnerships could be developed under this approach, it would be a significant step forward in bringing local governments, private landowners, and nongovernmental organizations directly into jaguar management.

This document embraces two components. First, a Conservation Assessment describes the current status of the jaguar in the United States, and identifies and assesses risks to the jaguar in Arizona and New Mexico. The Assessment focuses the second component, the Conservation Strategy, on reducing or eliminating these threats in Arizona and New Mexico, which might allow for expansion of the range currently occupied by the Arizona subspecies, and thus contribute to promoting recovery of the species.
Information in this document comes primarily from the state level, an approach that considers regional variation and provides a complete habitat and species assessment.

Research into the sensitivity and vulnerability of urban water systems in Arizona reveals that managers are more concerned about factors such as population growth projections, economic trends, and revenue flows. Reliance on groundwater resources in many cases obscures recognition of any direct impact of precipitation on water supply. Given the low level of perceived climate risk among many providers interviewed for this study, it would seem unlikely that climate information would be needed. However, pockets of sensitivity and vulnerability to climatic impacts do exist in the four study areas covered in this study.

The study had three main goals: (1) to assess the vulnerability of groundwater-dependent agriculture to climate variability, (2) to identify historical and current processes of adaptation to the vagaries of climate in the region— these refer to both system wide adaptations and individual farmer’s adaptations, and, (3) to assess the use of and needs for seasonal climate forecast information in agricultural decision making. The report is targeted at institutional stakeholders (i.e., agricultural extension personnel), physical scientists (particularly climatologists), and policymakers (at the level of NOAA and other federal agencies). Specific recommendations are made to these groups in order to improve the delivery of seasonal forecasts, set research priorities, and inform public policy.