Water Awareness Month: Now, More than Ever

Arizona Water Awareness Month

Water Awareness Month: Now, More than Ever

Water Awareness Month: Now, More than Ever
Published: March 31, 2022

Tips and Ideas to conserve water for each day of AprilIn a sense, the on-going drought conditions in the Southwest have made promoting water conservation a whole lot easier.

Over 20 years of chronic drought… alarmingly low surface levels at the two great Colorado River reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell… yet another middling snowpack in the Rocky Mountains. All decidedly bad news, to be sure. But if your job is convincing people to conserve water, the task has become a whole lot easier of late.

Welcome to Water Awareness Month 2022. As part of the effort to keep the public aware of the many ways they can help conserve water, ADWR and our many WAM partners have organized a month of events promoting wise water use.

Arizona Water Awareness Month is an annual outreach campaign to spread the word about the value of conserving the Southwest’s most precious natural resource, water. 

Details about all the April events are available on the Water Awareness Month website.

The many water-related events scheduled for the month will include:

  • April 5:  A discussion on the emerging approaches in hydrologic science that aid in water management decisions from USGS's Arizona Water Science Center
  • April 6: A discussion of water conservation home technologies and appliances from EPA WaterSense
  • April 12: A discussion on some aspects of water in relation to prehistoric ceramics and rock art with the Grand Canyon National Park Service.
  • April 13: A forecast of Colorado River streamflow from NOAA’s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center
  • April 19: A report on the history of the Salt River Project from SRP’s manager of Research Archives & Heritage
  • April 20: An interactive overview of water-related activities at Arizona's state parks

And much more.

The WAM website, first launched in 2011, overflows with ideas and activities to help you learn more about water conservation. Water Awareness Month itself began in 2008, when Arizona’s Governor signed an Executive Order that designates April as Water Awareness Month.

Arizona’s population has grown steadily over the years, however through significant investments in water conservation and infrastructure and the reuse of water, our water use is essentially the same as it was more than half a century ago.

Water providers and conservation experts around the state contribute information to the website about water-related activities, events, tips, and resources. The WAM website is full of ideas and activities to help Arizonans learn more about water conservation and become more aware of our state’s most precious resource, water.

There are hundreds of ways in thirty days that residents and businesses can learn not only about where their water comes from but also the steps they can take to become more water-efficient, both from the WAM website and from the live events scheduled throughout April.

Arizona has been very successful in improving water efficiency and conservation around the state. Despite a population increase of six million residents since 1957, Arizonans are using about the same amount of water now as we did then. Yes, changes in Arizona’s economy – from largely rural to largely urban – have played a big role in that conservation. But so has our concerted conservation efforts, anchored by the creation of the Arizona Groundwater Management Act of 1980.