Author(s)

J. B. Valdés, J. González, J. Cañón-Barriga & G. Woodard

Abstract

The semi-arid/arid US Southwest and Northwestern Mexico are experiencing severe droughts while at the same time having significant increases in their water demands. This paper evaluates the demand and the efforts to manage water resources under drought conditions. Innovative water resources management techniques need to be implemented to address this scarcity which is aggravated under drought conditions. This paper also presents an application of a new drought index (Gonzalez and Valdes, 2006ab) in characterizing the spatial and temporal variability of droughts and its use in water resources management, particularly multi-reservoirs. Keywords: droughts, semi-arid regions, water resources management, US Southwest, Northern Mexico. 1 Introduction Water managers in the Southwestern U.S. face a number of daunting problems. On the water demand side, population growth in Southwest states is the fastest in the nation. Arizona and Nevada, the two most arid states, have been experiencing annual growth rates of 4% and 5.5%, respectively. Changing socio-

Keywords

droughts, semi-arid regions, water resources management, US Southwest, Northern Mexico.