Arizona to Run out of Water
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Social
Prolonged Drought and a Rapidly Expanding Population Are Pushing Arizona's Water System to Its Limit
Arizona is bone dry, desiccated by the worst drought ever seen in the state's 110-year long observational record. The Grand Canyon State has been in drought conditions for a decade, and researchers think the dry spell could hold out for another 20 to 30 years ,says the City of Phoenix.
That people have not been fleeing Arizona in droves,as they did from the plains during the 1930s Dust Bowl, is a miracle of hydrological engineering. But the magic won't last, and if things don't start to change Arizona is going to be in trouble fast,says the New York Times .
A quarter of Arizona's water comes from the Colorado River, andthat river is running low. There's not enough water in the basin to keep Arizona's crucial Lake Mead reservoirs topped up. If changes aren't made to the entire multi-state hydrological system, says the Times , things could get bad.
Aside from the Colorado and other rivers,Arizona does get about 44 percentof its water from groundwater.As a fall-back, some cities have already turned to pumping this water out of the ground. Yet groundwater is only renewable to an extent, so relying on it long term is not a real solution.
Even if the currentproblems can be solved, though, that doesn't mean Arizona will be free of water-related woes.According to the Environmental Protection Agency,climate change is going to make everything worse.
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