Effective, meaningful, and sustainable water governance is central to democracy. Water governance creates opportunities for knowledge-sharing, collaboration, and civic engagement, all of which support key democratic principles of legitimacy and accountability. 

The fair and equitable management of water resources can serve as an equalizing and energizing force for democratic institutions. But the way we govern water can also exacerbate racial and socioeconomic inequalities or fail to inform and involve citizens, thereby threatening democracy. The Water and Democracy Lab brings researchers, practitioners, and students together to investigate some of the world’s most pressing water governance challenges. From studies of urban green infrastructure planning to transboundary water governance in the Colorado River Basin, projects aim to interrogate patterns of cooperation and conflict in water governance and seek to answer questions about the impact of specific governance methodologies as they pertain to questions of equity and justice, institutional design and change, learning and adaptation, and other areas. We are keenly interested in how water governance practices can nurture and strengthen democracy. 

Check out our work in the related Environmental Policy Program at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy: https://udallcenter.arizona.edu/programs-projects#epp 

The Team

Research Personnel

And dozens of interns, undergraduate students, graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and faculty near and far. 

Recent illustrative project publications

• Gerlak, Andrea K., Gemma Smith, Angel R. J. Loera Alonso, Stephen Mumme, Karl Flessa, Elizabeth A. Koebele, Julian Cardona* Jennifer Pitt, Robert G. Varady, Gina Gilson, Frida Cital, Adriana A. Zuniga-Teran, Mariana Rivera-Torres, Tanya Heikkila, Francisco Zamora, Jorge Ramírez-Hernández, and Maria Elena Giner. 2026. Perspectives on United States– Mexico Cooperation on the Colorado River. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 68(1): 14-26. https://experts.arizona.edu/en/publications/perspectives-on-united-statesmexico-cooperation-on-the-colorado-r/ 
   
• Brown, Adrienne R., Andrea K. Gerlak, Sayanangshu Modak, Adriana Zuniga-Teran, and Gina Gilson. 2026. Democracy in practice: a global systematic review of democracy and water governance research. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2026.2640938
   
• Brown, Adrienne R., Andrea K. Gerlak, Gemma Smith, Adriana Zuniga-Teran, and Gina Gilson. 2025. Governing the nexus: Lessons from water governance in the United States. Environmental Science & Policy 172: 104214. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104214
   
• Gerlak, Andrea K., Adrienne R. Brown, Tanya Heikkila, and Sara Hughes. 2025. The Future of Water and Democracy: Assessing and Improving Water Governance in the United States. WIREs Water. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.70022
   
• Heikkila, Tanya and Andrea K. Gerlak. 2024. Learning for Environmental Governance Insights for a More Adaptive Future. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/earth-and-environmental-science/environmental-policy-economics-and-law/learning-environmental-governance-insights-more-adaptive-future?format=PB&isbn=9781009461122 
   
• Gerlak, Andrea K., editor. 2023. The Conversation on Water. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/33266/conversation-water 

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