Tucson Now: Arizona Water Has New Superheroes
Joining Makayla Goos on the Tucson Now desk, AIR researcher Neha Gupta discusses a recently released, groundbreaking project offering solutions to Arizona’s impending water crisis.
KOLD News 13
A team of researches, students, and faculty from three public Arizona universities is offering new tools and strategies aimed at easing Arizona’s growing water concerns, as Colorado River supplies become less reliable and the state faces hotter, drier conditions.
The Arizona Tri-University Recharge and Water Reliability Project—bringing together the University of Arizona, Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University—modeled the water budget for all 51 of Arizona’s groundwater basins and mapped out ways communities could capture more water and recharge aquifers. Among the report’s key findings: statewide water storage is declining, and more than 95% of Arizona’s precipitation is lost to evaporation, meaning even small reductions in those losses could add meaningful supply.
Researchers also identified high-potential areas, including the Mogollon Rim, and pointed to land-management approaches that could improve recharge, such as forest thinning and better flood and fire management. The report includes a Decision Support Framework, basin-by-basin profiles, and a “Recharge Opportunities Matrix” with more than 50 approaches to water collection and recharge.
Neha Gupta, the project manager at the University of Arizona, said the work also honors the legacy of late hydrology researcher Thomas Meixner, who helped launch the effort in 2023. The report was prepared at the request of the Arizona Department of Water Resources and funded through the Arizona Board of Regents’ Technology and Research Initiative Fund.
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