This project explores how Tucson can advance urban greening while moving toward a Net Zero Urban Water system. It collects new natural and social data to understand vegetation water use and community priorities. The findings will support a tool that helps guide sustainable, water-balanced urban greening.
Researchers
- Courtney Crosson
- Neha Gupta
- Adriana Zuniga-Teran
- Kevin Lansey
Community Partners and Consultants
- Tucson Clean and Beautiful
- Sonoran Environmental Research Institute (SERI)
- Watershed Management Group
Project Details
Budget: $75,000
Where: Tucson, Arizona
Outcomes: Workshops, Reports, and Landscape Prototypes
Project Overview
The Colorado River is experiencing its most severe mega-drought in a millennium, leaving cities throughout the U.S. Southwest increasingly uncertain about the reliability of imported water and aging 20th-century infrastructure. Built, natural, and social systems often conflict with efforts to advance water conservation and sustainability. In the face of climate change, population growth, and stressed infrastructure—and with new technological and social capabilities—one strategy emerges: reinventing community water management to rely solely on local water sources through a Net Zero Urban Water (NZUW) approach. This project investigates how Southwest cities can pursue NZUW while expanding urban greening to provide heat-mitigating benefits. Focusing on Tucson, Arizona—where a net-zero water ordinance and ambitious urban greening goals are now in development—the project gathers new natural and social system data and develops an integrated NZUW evaluative tool to support sustainable, climate-adaptive greening.
Project Description
The Colorado River is facing its worst mega-drought in a millennium and is no longer able to meet the demands of the 40 million people in the United States who rely on it. As a result, cities throughout the U.S. Southwest are reconsidering both their dependence on imported water and the reliability and management of their existing 20th-century water systems. In many cities in this region, the built, natural, and social systems conflict with advancing water conservation and sustainability. Faced with the pressures of climate change, population growth, and aging infrastructure, and in light of the techno-economic and social advances of the last century, one possible strategy presents itself: reinventing community water management to thrive using only local water sources through a Net Zero Urban Water (NZUW) approach.
NZUW is a holistic water planning framework that accounts for both natural and human water needs. As temperatures rise and urban heat islands intensify, demand for expanded urban greening is increasing, particularly as cities embrace vegetation-based cooling as a climate-adaptation strategy. This project focuses on Tucson, Arizona, where a net-zero water ordinance is currently being developed and where new urban greening and tree-canopy goals form core components of recently adopted climate action plans at both the city and county levels.
Our community-identified research need asks: How can Southwest cities achieve NZUW balances while expanding urban greening and its socio-environmental co-benefits? To answer this, the project addresses key data gaps in local natural systems (Objective 1) and local social systems (Objective 2) and integrates these inputs into a comprehensive NZUW urban-greening evaluative tool (Objective 3).
Objective 1: Natural System Data.
The project will collect in-situ data to quantify vegetation water use and evapotranspiration across representative Tucson landscape typologies. Methods include monitoring equipment and discrete sampling (e.g., soil cores). In Stage 1, typologies and monitoring sites will be selected, and site-specific plans will be finalized with project collaborators.
Objective 2: Social System Data.
The project will conduct public-preference workshops and key-informant interviews with resource managers to understand community values, priorities, and implementation barriers. In Stage 1, these activities will be co-designed with civic partners to ensure inclusive and actionable outcomes.
Objective 3: Integrated Evaluation Tool.
During Stage 1, the team will finalize a method for scaling in-situ natural data citywide using remote sensing (NDVI, LiDAR, orthophotos) and artificial intelligence. In Stage 2, these datasets and social-system findings will be integrated into a functional NZUW evaluative tool to guide future urban-greening strategies for the City and County of Tucson.
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