The Desert Southwest: Oasis or Mirage?

The American West has a drinking problem. On farms and in cities, we are guzzling water at an alarming rate. Scientists say that to live sustainably, we should use no more than 40 percent of the water from the Colorado River Basin. As it is now, we use 76 percent, nearly double the sustainable benchmark. The water supports the populations of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming, providing for agriculture and cities. With a changing climate and continued population growth, increasing demand for water may make this vital resource increasingly scarce. There are some safeguards in place against water scarcity. The reservoir Lakes Mead and Powell can provide approximately five years of average annual stream flow at full capacity for insurance against low rainfall years. Also, to our detriment, there is a culture dedicated to creating an oasis in the Southwest’s arid environment. Most of the West’s water falls in the mountains, where it slowly melts, We collect it and then spread it thin across the deserts. Moving water from wet areas to dry areas makes people feel safe, according to Sabo. Regardless of how much our lawns guzzle, the largest use of water isn’t in urban areas but in agriculture. Farming uses 77 percent of the water allocated for human use in Arizona, according to the Morrison Institute for Public Policy’s publication “Watering the Sun Corridor.”...more