Water Strategy & Governance Advisory
Water availability has become a gating condition for growth across the American West and a widening set of markets beyond it. The Colorado River system supplies roughly 40 million people, and the rules that govern it after 2026 are only half settled: Interior's August 21, 2026 Record of Decision fixed operating guidelines for 2027 and 2028 and left years three through ten of the new framework to further negotiation, with Lake Mead at a record low the same month. In metro Phoenix, subdivisions that depend on unreplenished groundwater have been unable to obtain 100-Year Assured Water Supply certificates since 2023, pushing developers toward infill and toward buying existing water rights at rising cost per lot. Large new water users (semiconductor fabs, data centers, food processors, large irrigators) are meeting organized local opposition before their applications are complete. The constraint is wider than the Colorado River: in England, Natural England's water neutrality position held up housing across the Sussex North zone for four years until late 2025, and water capacity objections delayed 4,500 homes at Waterbeach near Cambridge.
We advise on the water side of these decisions. For operators and investors, that means understanding what water is available at a site over the life of a project under changing rules, and what it will cost to secure it. For utilities, municipalities, institutions, and public bodies, it means an independent account of what new demand does to their systems and who ends up paying for the infrastructure to serve it.
Water Availability & Supply Risk Assessment – What a site or portfolio can actually rely on: basin allocations, groundwater rules, surface rights, drought contingency tiers, and how each is trending over a 10 to 30 year horizon.
Water Governance & Regulatory Strategy – How allocation decisions get made and where a party can engage: assured-supply and adequacy rules, groundwater management frameworks, water utility rate proceedings, and shortage negotiations.
Siting, Development & Large-User Water Strategy – Demand profiles, cooling and process water choices, community reception, and the alternatives that change the conversation (reclaimed water, recharge credits, dry and hybrid cooling, demand offsets).
Independent Research & Expert Insight – Commissioned analysis, briefings for boards and investment committees, and expert commentary on water, land, growth, and infrastructure questions.
How We Work on Water
Water problems are governance problems before they are engineering problems. The same project can be approvable in one basin and dead on arrival in the next, and the difference is in allocation rules, rate structures, supply economics, and local politics. Our work connects those layers so a client knows where the rules are heading and what that means for a specific site or portfolio.
Led by Published, Cited Work
The practice is led by Arif Gasilov, Partner for Natural Resources & Built Environment. His paper in OGEL Energy Law Journal (April 2026) examines how Colorado River scarcity introduces physical constraints that Western utility resource planning currently ignores. Newsweek asked him to assess China's wind-powered underwater data center, which uses seawater cooling to eliminate freshwater demand entirely.
Both Sides of the Table, Separately
We advise water users, and we advise the public bodies receiving them. We don't take both sides of the same proceeding, and the independence is why the analysis holds up in front of a commission, a council, an editor, or a counterparty.
From Assessment to Position
Output is built for decisions: whether to acquire, where to site, what to commit to in a development agreement, when to engage in a rate case or rulemaking, and what to say publicly. Deliverables come with sources a reviewer can check.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does water strategy advisory cover?
Identifying and managing exposure to water availability, allocation rules, rising supply costs, and the public reception of water-intensive projects. Typical work includes site and portfolio supply risk assessment, analysis of assured-supply and groundwater rules, water utility rate exposure, and strategy for projects likely to be contested.
How do water availability rules affect development?
Arizona's 100-Year Assured Water Supply rule requires developers in Active Management Areas to demonstrate a century of physically and legally available water before subdivision approval. Equivalent mechanisms operate elsewhere: adequacy rules in other Western states, and abstraction licensing and habitats-based restrictions in the UK and EU.
Do you only work in the American Southwest?
The Colorado River Basin is where US allocation rules are changing fastest, so much of the work is there. The same questions arise in Texas and the Southeast, and across the UK and EU, where abstraction licensing and water neutrality rules have done to development what assured-supply rules do in Arizona.
Facing a water question you can't price yet?
A Water Exposure Diagnostic is a two-week engagement: we screen a site or portfolio for supply risk, governance posture, rate trajectory, and near-term options, then deliver a prioritized workplan.
Led by Arif Gasilov.