C4C Labs · UtilityGraph

A network view of Flagstaff's water conservation plan

We applied a network lens to a Maddaus-authored conservation plan.

This reveals how the plan is actually structured — who influences it, how measures connect, and where external partners are implicitly required but not named.

What you're looking at is extracted deterministically, with every node and edge traceable to a page in the source PDF.

Flagstaff 2020 · Curated Subgraph · Declared Edges Only

Interactive graph. Scroll to zoom · drag any node to rearrange · drag the background to pan · hover or click a node to see the source evidence · click an insight below to focus on its subgraph.

Organization
Consultant
Governance
Person
Measure
Target group

Source text

Three things the graph reveals

Click any insight to focus the graph on the nodes it's about.

1 · Institutional concentration around NAU

Northern Arizona University appears as a connected actor through Ben Ruddell, who sits on the Water Commission. That's a research-university tie directly into the body that advised plan development.

Why it matters: Flagstaff's conservation planning sits inside a university-anchored knowledge network. That's a natural foundation for education, data-sharing, and pilot programs — and an overlooked attribute of the plan's strategic footing.

2 · Named facilitators without programmatic definition

Southwest Decision Resources is named as a consultant in the plan, but our deterministic extraction does not tie it to specific measures. That suggests a facilitation role that is present in the planning process but not structurally described at the program level.

Why it matters: plans often carry invisible implementation layers. Making facilitation roles legible is a prerequisite for understanding how measures actually get delivered — and where delivery partners could be introduced.

3 · Measures imply partners that aren't named

Several measures — Public Outreach and School Education, School Retrofits, Commercial Rebates and Consultations, Innovation Research and Pilot Studies — target external groups (schools, commercial properties, research partners) that aren't explicitly defined as funded or delivery partners in the plan. In other words: the plan defines what needs to happen, but not who will fund or deliver it.

Why it matters: the plan encodes latent partnership demand. These measures require external actors to succeed — the structural opportunity is to match those requirements with organizations looking to fund them.

Matchmaking · Worked example

A concrete fit: Intel × Flagstaff's education and research measures

Flagstaff need A Public Outreach and School Education measure plus an Innovation Research and Pilot Studies measure, both selected for the Optimized Conservation Program. Neither has a declared external funding partner.
Flagstaff asset NAU as an institutionally embedded research partner (via the Water Commission), plus existing K-12 and higher-education delivery channels.
Corporate fit Intel operates major Arizona semiconductor fabs and has declared water-stewardship commitments in the state, with a history of conservation partnerships — including with The Nature Conservancy in the Salt River and San Pedro watersheds. Education and research at NAU are natural extensions of that portfolio into northern Arizona.
The match is straightforward: Intel has demonstrated Arizona water investment; Flagstaff has measures designed to be funded but not yet funded; NAU is the delivery anchor. A co-developed Flagstaff education and research program delivered through NAU would extend Intel's existing Arizona water leadership into a new watershed while giving Flagstaff named funding and co-development partnership for two of its priority measures. This is the kind of match Maddaus is uniquely positioned to broker across its plan portfolio.

This type of opportunity is not visible in the plan itself — but becomes clear when the plan is structured as a network.