John Fleck

John Fleck is director of the University of New Mexico's Water Resources Program. Fleck is Professor of Practice in water policy and governance in the university's Department of Economics and has been the Water Resources Program's writer-in-residence since January 2015. For 25 years, he covered science and the environment for The Albuquerque Journal. He is author of The Tree Rings’ Tale, a children’s book about the climate of the West.

Water is for Fighting Over

and Other Myths about Water in the West

"Illuminating." —New York Times

WIRED's Required Science Reading 2016

When we think of water in the West, we think of conflict and crisis. In recent years, newspaper headlines have screamed, “Scarce water and the death of California farms,” “The Dust Bowl returns,” “A ‘megadrought’ will grip U.S. in the coming decades.” Yet similar stories have been appearing for decades and the taps continue to flow.