![]() ![]() Many cities and towns in the Southwest - including Los Angeles, San Diego, and Albuquerque - are trying to figure out solutions to a dwindling Lake Mead, the key reservoir on the Colorado. “You could hit dead pool in four years,” Sorensen said. And Phoenix may need the water sooner than it planned. Phoenix may have enough water to secure its near-term future, but it still needs to build $500 million of infrastructure to pipe it to northern parts of the city that now rely on Colorado River water. These days, Phoenix’s alternative water supplies are not dependent on the Colorado. ![]() “I can survive dead pool for generations,” says Sorensen, pointing to a host of conservation and water storage measures that have significantly brightened the city’s water outlook in an era of climate change and drought. And what of the dreaded “dead pool,” the point at which the level in the giant man-made lake falls so low that water can no longer be pumped out? “We are fully prepared to go into Tier 1, 2, and 3 emergency,” said Kathryn Sorensen, Phoenix’s water services director, referring to federally mandated cutbacks of Colorado River water as the levels of Lake Mead, the source of some of the city’s water, continue to drop. But while the Hohokam succumbed to the mega-drought, the city of Phoenix and its neighbors are desperately scrambling to avoid a similar fate - no easy task in a desert that gets less than 8 inches of rain a year. The fate of the Hohokam holds lessons these days for Arizona, as the most severe drought since their time has gripped the region. The people who had mastered farming dispersed across the landscape. It is believed to be a primary cause of the collapse of Hohokam society. Then in 1276, tree ring data shows, a withering drought descended on the Southwest, lasting more than two decades. Hohokam civilization was characterized by farm fields irrigated by the Salt and Gila rivers with a sophisticated system of carefully calibrated canals, the only prehistoric culture in North America with so advanced a farming system. from 2010 to 2020, when it tallied an 11.2% growth rate.The Hohokam were an ancient people who lived in the arid Southwest, their empire now mostly buried beneath the sprawl of some 4.5 million people who inhabit modern-day Phoenix, Arizona and its suburbs. Phoenix was the fastest growing city in the U.S. The three Southwest states recently agreed on a deal to save an additional 3 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado River, which serves 40 million people across multiple states. Arizona shares drought issues with California and Nevada, making up a group of states that have suffered from dwindling water sources and have implemented measures to combat the challenge. The drought that has historically plagued the Southwest was, as of last year, considered to be the driest 22-year period of the past 1,200 years as of last year, according to the scientific journal Nature Climate Change. Arizona has dealt with decreased water levels for years, with some rural areas facing the consequences of droughts and overuse of aquifers. ![]() in population growth with more than 56,000 residents moving to the county. The county’s next largest water source is surface water, followed by reclaimed water. Phoenix is located within Maricopa County, which was home to more than 60% of Arizona’s population in 2020 and relies on groundwater for most of its water supply. The state water department attributed the groundwater constraints to a combination of groundwater overdraft, when more water is pumped from an aquifer than is recharged, and “continued reliance on groundwater resources.” Key Background
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