Submissions for the CAP Award for Water Research are accepted anytime during a given year. The deadline for submissions is June 1. Research submitted for this award should focus specifically on water issues that affect Central and Southern Arizona and the Colorado River. Papers can focus on legal, economic, political, environmental, or water management issues, as well as any other issue that might be of interest to CAP or Arizona water users. Priority will be given to Colorado River issues.
First Place: $1,000
Second Place: $500
Suggested topics include but are not limited to:
- Drought management
- Environmental law
- Groundwater resources
- Indian water rights
- Public perception of water issues
- Recharge
- Riparian habitat
- Rural watershed/water use
- Subsidence
- Surface water
- Surface/groundwater relationships
- Threatened/endangered species
- Water conservation
- Water law
- Water policy/politics
- Water rights
- Water supply/use
To apply, submit our online entry form.
2019 Winning Papers - Co-2nd Place Winners Recognized
- 1st Place - Thomas Whipple for his Master’s thesis titled, “Planning for depletion: optimal irrigation in the Pinal AMA under changing water sources.” Tom is a hydrologist with the Arizona Department of Water Resources working in the Recharge section. He has a B.S. and M.S. in hydrology from the Uiversity of Arizona.
- 2nd Place - Tiffani Cáñez for her paper, “Mapping fresh and brackish groundwater to inform better management of decreasing groundwater levels in the Wilcox Basin, south-east Arizona.” Tiffani received her bachelor’s in hydrology last May from the University of Arizona and is now completing her masters, also in hydrology. Her research focuses on the combination of water quality and water management.
- 2nd Place - Shelby Hoglund for her paper, “Issues and implications for central Arizona agriculture associated with the Colorado River shortage.” Shelby is a PhD student at the University of Arizona in the Department of Environmental Sciences. She is a Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research Fellow researching soil carbon in arid agricultural systems.
Past Winning Papers
- 1st Place (Co-1st Place) - Sustainability Principles and the Future of Phoenix, Arizona: Framing the Salt River’s Urban Waterway Redevelopment by V. Horvath and D. D. White, School of Sustainability and School of Community Resources and Development. Arizona State University, Decision Center for a Desert City
- 1st Place (Co-1st Place) - Water Policy in Arizona and the Semi-arid West by William Tintor, University of Arizona, School of Geography and Development and the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.
- 1st Place - The Water-Energy Nexus Dimension of the Central Arizona Project System Use Agreement by Beth Kleiman, Water, Society, and Policy, University of Arizona School of Natural Resources
- 2nd Place - When the Turbines Stop Turning: Examining the Impacts of Drought on Power Production at Hoover Dam and Its Consequences for Entities in Arizona by Surabhi Karambelkar, School of Geography and Development, University of Arizona
- 1st Place - A Framework for Indirect Potable Reuse in Arizona by Ling-Yee Huang, Water, Society, and Policy, University of Arizona School of Natural Resources
- 2nd Place - Developing an Updated Multi-temporal Landcover Classification to Assess Riparian Conservation and Inform Decision-Making in the Upper San Pedro Watershed: A Classification and Regression Tree (CART) Model Approach by Lily A. House-Peters, School of Geography and Development, University of Arizona
- 1st Place - Virus Removal Efficiency in Wetlands Receiving Secondary Treated Wastewater, by Andri Rachmadi, Soil, Water and Environmental Science, University of Arizona
- 2nd Place - Institutional Frameworks for Managing Groundwater in Rural Arizona and Sonora, by America Nallely Lutz Ley, Arid Lands Resource Sciences GIDP, University of Arizona
- 1st Place - Modeling Soil Moisture, Water Partitioning, and Plant Stress under Irrigated Conditions in Desert Urban Areas, by Thomas Volo, Civil Engineering, Hydrology and Hydrosystems, Arizona State University
- 2nd Place - Stakeholder Incentives for Effluent Utilization in the Tucson Metropolitan Region and Recharge in the Santa Cruz River, by Jacob Prietto, Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona
- 1st Place - Solar Desalination In The Southwest United States, by Matthew Stroud, Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona
- 2nd Place - Value Intensity of Water Used for Electrical Generation in the Western U. S.; An Application of Embedded Resource Accounting, by Elizabeth Martin, Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering, Arizona State University
- 1st Place - Assessing Impacts of Climate Change in a Semi Arid Watershed Using Statistically Downscaled IPCC Climate Output, by G. Seshadri Rajagopal, Department of Hydrology & Water Resources, University of Arizona
- 2nd Place - Arizona Water Management Along the Adaptive Cycle: What Can the Ebb of Water Governance Teach Us About Future Flows?, by Kelly Mott Lacroix, Arid Lands Resource Sciences, University of Arizona
- 1st Place - Rethinking Water in the Arid Southwest, by G. Anderson, E. Dick, J. Minor and A. Prichard
- 2nd Place - Rainwater Harvesting in the Southwestern, United States, by Todd L. Gaston
- 1st Place: Life Cycle Water Consumption of Alternative, Low-Carbon Transportation Fuels, by Christopher Harto, Robert Meyers and Eric Williams
- 2nd Place: Reverse Osmosis Treatment of Central Arizona Project Water-Brine Minimization Via Vibratory Shear-enhanced Processing, by Andrea F. Corral & Umur Yenal