Since the inception of AWII, AW4A has had a key partnership with the Household Water Insecurity Experience community of practice (HWISE-CP).  HWISE-CP recently developed world-leading tools for measuring water insecurity in lower and middle-income countries, now used by many monitoring institutions, including WHO. However, these tools are not designed for higher-income settings with generally safe and accessible water services, but where there are nonetheless some water-insecure households.

The HWISE leadership and key analysts joined AWII in October for a workshop at ASU to begin the final analysis to develop the tool. Using data collected with support from AWII with Arizona’s most water vulnerable populations over the last 2 years to develop the scale, the resulting tool is now ready for scientific review and publication. 

Using the Arizona dataset, the collaborative workshop also finalized and has now submitted for scientific peer review an innovative “Water Trust Scale” that can better reveal people’s perceptions of their water providers, a known factor in decisions around how people drink and otherwise use their household water.

We are very proud that Arizona Water for All and AWII is leading the world in developing the metrics needed to plan for the best possible water futures of those Arizona households most at risk of facing issues in the decades ahead. And by providing a tool that can also be applied in other places, Arizona gains crucial comparative data from elsewhere in the USA that can be used to identify innovative water security strategies used elsewhere that could work in Arizona.