De La Luzerne Aux Masterplanned Communities : Enjeux De La Gestion De L’eau Sur Un Front D’urbanisation, Le Cas De Buckeye En Arizona

The city of Buckeye, on the west side of ​​the Phoenix urban area (the state capital of Arizona) is the fastest growing city in the United States. Located in a semi-arid environment, the city was born at the edge of an irrigation canal in the context of the Conquest of the West. From a small farming community, Buckeye has transformed into an attractive suburb of Phoenix composed of multiple oasis-like masterplanned communities. However, this urban development is largely based on the exploitation of groundwater, regulated since the 1980s by the Groundwater Management Act, a law passed by the State of Arizona considered to be at the forefront of sustainable water management. This paper builds on how water is managed at the municipal level in Buckeye to explore the contradictions of water management in Arizona. Indeed, numbers of measures and safeguards were put in place in order to regulate the exploitation of the resource. The laissez-faire attitude of the various levels of government (State, municipalities) concerning land management is not helping to lower the pressure on the resource, which is becoming increasingly rare in the context of climate change.