Brewing Water Conservation in the West
Tate WatkinsA new market in Arizona shows how small innovations can help conserve water in the West—and why many more will be needed in the Colorado River Basin.
Volume 37, No.2, Winter 2018
Rather than uniting the communities of the American West, the region’s natural resources often divide them. The chasm between traditional commodity extraction and non-traditional amenity enjoyment is often made wider by the institutions that govern natural resources in the West. Legal and political institutions that raise the cost of resolving competing demands cooperatively through markets only exacerbate the acrimony over the use of resources in the region.
This special issue of PERC Reports, supported by the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, explores the shifting demands placed on the West’s natural resources. It seeks to encourage a rigorous discussion of solutions that promote cooperation instead of conflict, entrepreneurship instead of acrimony, and compromise instead of litigation.
