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WE ARE FACING A WATER SHORTAGE

Growing Overdraft is Draining Our Only Water Source

Our region faces the very real threat of a water shortage. The cause will be the large and growing overdraft that is gradually draining our region's aquifer, our only source of water. See What Is Overdraft.

Each year, the groundwater pumped for people's homes, commercial and institutional facilities, industry and agriculture far exceeds what is being replaced by nature and by artificial recharge.

See How Large is the Overdraft.

  • Landscape and golf course water use - especially thirsty turf - consumes excessive amounts of water in our arid environment. See Landscape Water Use.
  • Older housing stock usually has many inefficient fixtures. Local and county conservation programs have barely made a dent in the potential to reduce regional water demand (see Current Water Conservation).
  • Municipal artificial recharge efforts, originally meant to replenish the aquifer, instead have been designated for new housing and do not help to achieve safe yield. See Limitations of Aquifer Recharge and What is Safe Yield.
  • Municipal governments, facilitated by Arizona water law, support aggressive residential and commercial growth in the region. See Why is there water for Growth.
  • Drought and temperature increases – climate change – are now reducing natural recharge of the aquifer, thus increasing the overdraft and threatening the Verde River. See Climate Change Reduces Recharge.

 What's ahead? 

  • Tens of thousands of new homes will increase water demand. See Growth Harms the Aquifer.
  • Climate models foresee sharply increasing temperatures that tend to reduce aquifer recharge – a perfect storm of increased demand and reduced supply. 
  • Every day the overdraft grows, shortening the time until rationing or other severe water saving measures will be required.

CWAG is optimistic about our water future only if we can start taking action now. Government officials must first acknowledge the threat of a long term water shortage and then begin to work together to prepare new water management policies and programs. See Actions for a Sustainable Future.

For a summary of the threats to our water supply see this article.

Join the Citizens Water Advocacy Group and help us meet the challenge!

Updated February 7, 2021

DAILY DROPLET

  • "Ranchers need clean water for their stock, farmers need it for their crops, every employer needs it to stay in business, and every living thing needs it for life... The law needs to be clear to protect water quality and the rights of landowners."
    Mark Udall

  • "Water is the driver of Nature."
    Leonardo da Vinci

  • "When the well is dry, we know the worth of water."
    Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1746

  • "...and since flow of information is to spirit what water is to life, we'd best think about how to keep the pipes free and unclogged."
    Raphie Frank

  • "In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference."
    Rachel Carson

  • "We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one."
    Jacques Yves Cousteau

  • "Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water."
    Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, 1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine

  • "Water is everywhere and in all living things; we cannot be separated from water. No water, no life. Period..."
    Robert Fulghum

  • "It's the water. Everything is driven by the water."
    Mike Thompson

  • "Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over."
    Mark Twain