Arizona Department of Water Resources creates dashboard to present data to public

PHOENIX — As drought in the American southwest continues to put pressure on Arizona’s water resources, officials are trying to make water use data more easily accessible to the general public.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources announced on Thursday the new Water Management Assistance Program dashboard.

The tool — found on the Active Management Areas website — shows information on project funding, groundwater management and other programs.

Arizona has Active Management Areas representing the state’s most populous regions — Prescott, Phoenix, Pinal, Tucson and Santa Cruz — and the dashboard is a response to questions ADWR staffers have heard regarding available funding and how money gets used in the AMAs, according to a press release.

The dashboard has five tabs. The first describes Water Management Assistance Program funding and fund balance, the second lists WMAP projects and the third has information on Groundwater Conservation Grant projects.

As an example, one could click on the Natural Resource Education Center in the second tab and see that $30,000 was awarded to the initiative which presented water conservation education to Pinal County students and residents between Oct. 18, 2021, and Oct. 31, 2022.

As the west endures more drought, mandatory water cuts already are affecting Arizona.

Arizona got about 36% of its total water supply from the Colorado River as recently as 2020. That share of river water feeding farms and cities has declined some since then, with the advent of a federally approved Drought Contingency Plan that will cut the state’s river water use by 21% starting in 2023.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.