Water management is among the most pressing issues in Arizona and throughout the Southwest. Elected officials and business leaders rely on world-class research to make crucial water-related decisions that will have significant generational impacts.

The University of Arizona's influence in water studies goes well beyond the Southwest, as it has been recognized by the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities as the world's No. 1 program in water resources.

The Shanghai ARWU subject rankings score more than 1,200 global universities based on the number of papers authored by an institution in an academic subject, the ratio of citation of papers published to the average citations of papers in the same category, the number of papers published in top journals, the amount of international collaboration and the total number of staff members that have won significant awards.

The UA's total score of 297.7 put it well ahead of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of New South Wales. The UA ranked No. 3 in this program in Shanghai's inaugural subject rankings in 2017.

The UA also earned a top-10 placement in library and information sciences, finishing ninth in the world and second among Pac-12 peers. The UA's Department of Communication finished No. 16 globally and No. 1 in the Pac-12, as well.

The UA tallied top-50 global rankings in earth sciences (No. 30), ecology (No. 33) and public administration (No. 37).

Shanghai ARWU ranks 54 programs five categories – natural sciences, engineering, life sciences, medical sciences and social sciences.

The ARWU's institutional ranking was first published in June 2003 by the Center for World-Class Universities, Graduate School of Education (formerly the Institute of Higher Education) of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, and has updated on an annual basis. Since 2009, the ARWU has been published and copyrighted by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy. The UA ranks No. 101-150 in its latest overall ranking, published in 2018.