The U.S. Department of Interior has ordered cuts to the amount of water Arizona receives from the Colorado River, due to decreasing water levels over recent years.
Arizona is one of seven states that draw on water from the river, and the proposed cuts would reduce its share of the water by 760,000 acre-feet, according to the USDI.
Other states that share in usage of Colorado River water have implemented mandated restrictions on water usage for average citizens, something cities in Arizona have yet to do.
Amid these changes, organizations within ASU are working to find ways to respond to the cuts and keep Arizona's water usage sustainable for the coming years.
One organization is the Kyl Center for Water Policy, which focuses on providing neutral policy analysis and advising on water sustainability in Arizona.
"Arizona has a lot of experts on water, but almost all of those experts work for either a water agency or for an entity like a city or a mining company or a power company, and that means they have a dog in the fight," said Sarah Porter, the director of the Kyl Center. "What makes the Kyl Center different is that we are neutral and nonpartisan."
Porter said the impacts of these latest cuts to Arizona's water supply from the Colorado River are not likely to impact residents of many major cities in the state drastically, since most do not currently use all of their allotted water from the city.
Most cities store their excess water supply in local aquifers, which has given them a bit of a buffer for possible changes to water allocation, like those currently taking place, Porter said. However, these cuts also mean that cities will not be able to contribute as much excess water to their emergency savings.
Part of the reason for these previous conservation efforts comes from the fact that the cuts themselves have been somewhat predicted by many water policy experts in Arizona.
"For at least for two decades and probably longer, water managers have been reckoning with less Colorado River waters, particularly to Central Arizona," Porter said. "The shortage that we're seeing, the conditions on the reservoirs that are so worrisome, have come on, I would say, a little more fast and furious than people expected."
Porter explained that should cuts to Arizona's Colorado River water supply continue, cities may have to start relying on pulling resources from what she referred to as "savings accounts," which would be an unsustainable solution for the long term.
"The city of Phoenix and some other cities are investing in advanced water purification, where they take reclaimed water, which is water that was wastewater and then treated to a level of quality," Porter said.
Porter said this could help Phoenix reduce its reliance on water from the Colorado River by 50%.
Although the Colorado River does make up a key part of Arizona's overall water supply, it is far from the only contributor, and other ASU organizations have keyed in on additional water sources like groundwater.
Susan Craig is the director of Impact Water - Arizona, which works to help local Arizona communities navigate groundwater usage and conservation, utilizing tactics like workshops with water and policy experts to spread information at the local level.
Craig explains while most of the communities her organization works with are reliant on groundwater rather than Colorado River water, the recent cuts still have a ripple effect on other water sources in Arizona.
Still, as other water experts point out, relying on groundwater to make up for the losses will not be sustainable in the long term.
"If you look at the deep groundwater, which is what we are typically pumping, that could be a few hundred to 10,000 years old," said Upmanu Lall, the director of ASU's Water Institute and Global Futures professor. "So, one way of thinking about it is that suppose you pump that out, it'll be a few hundred to 10,000 years before it comes back."
Lall said some experts have proposed taking measures such as removing salt and minerals from other water sources and transporting it to Arizona.
Municipal usage of water in Arizona in urban areas has stayed largely stagnant over the years, despite the state's growing population, whereas agriculture is the major target for more efficient water usage, Lall said.
Porter said while individual efforts to conserve water will not be able to re-stabilize Arizona's water supply entirely on their own, they can still serve as a valuable part of the process.
As strategies and policies are discussed to help Arizona clear this latest hurdle in its water usage, Porter, Craig and Lall all noted the significance of ASU's work in bringing experts across a variety of fields together to tackle the issue head on.
"I have these experts at ASU on other subjects that can help add dimension and understanding to the issues, and that can't happen outside of a university," Porter said. "Having that at ASU means that the state can have a trusted, neutral, nonpartisan perspective on issues that the state faces in a very noisy, contentious world when we're talking about these issues that are of great urgency to people."
Edited by Dhemi Bell, Senna James and Sophia Keeling.
Reach the reporter at sluba@asu.edu and follow @samluba6 on X.
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Sam Luba is the Lead Community and Culture Reporter at The State Press. He is a junior studying political science and justice studies with a certificate in political history and leadership. This is his fifth semester with The State Press, working previously as a Senior Reporter and part-time Politics reporter.
