ABSTRACT
This book is about the physical and socio-economic roles played by water in the Southwestern US, with a primary focus on Tucson, Arizona. In the context of continued population growth, together with the fact that periods of drought are common in the Southwest and that the climate can be expected to change due to global warming, it is not unreasonable to expect that water will become increasingly scarce (leading to a “water bankruptcy”) and that conflicts around water may increase. Such scarcity is, however, not a purely physical phenomenon, but results from a complex interplay between physical availability, the dynamics of the environment, and the behaviors of human and the demands they impose.
