Science and Diplomacy Around Shared US-Mexico Water Resources

In October 2018, working with several campus units, the Udall Center organized a workshop, “Binational Water Relations at 75 Years.”The theme of the event was the anniversary of the Treaty of 1944 that governs water relations between the United States and Mexico.

A number of the attendees resolved to prepare some papers on U.S.-Mexico water relations, as well as on the larger topic of hydrodiplomacy across the globe. 

The first published output from the workshop has just appeared online in the AAAS journal, Science and Diplomacy.The piece, titled, “U.S.-Mexico hydrodiplomacy: Foundations, change, and future challenges,” was coauthored by Udall Center faculty members Margaret Wilder (affiliate faculty), Robert Varady, Andrea Gerlak, and Christopher Scott; and longtime associates Stephen Mumme (Colorado State University), Nicolás Pineda Pablos (El Colegio de Sonora). 

You can read the essay.

A longer and more complete article on U.S.-Mexico water diplomacy has been submitted to a special issue of the journal, Environmental Science and Policy.The special issue, “New Directions in Hydrodiplomacy to Meet Global Water Challenges: Learning from the Past, Shaping the Future” (edited by Varady, Wilder, Gerlak, and Pineda), which is under preparation, is another important product of the October 2018 workshop.