Navigating uncharted waters: ASU drives solutions for water resilience

Editor's note: This is the fifth story in a series exploring how ASU is changing the way the world solves problems.

In the Southwest, water seems to exist in two vastly conflicting states: abundance and scarcity. For some, simply turning on a faucet at work or at home yields a seemingly on-demand supply of one of our planet’s most precious resources. And yet, persisting drought, extreme heat, lessened precipitation and high demand for water have drastically altered our water supply.

The Southwest has grappled with an ongoing megadrought since 2000, the driest period in the last 1,200 years. In a place already known for extreme heat and an arid climate, a secure water supply is especially crucial in order for humanity to thrive.

The Arizona Water Innovation Initiative at ASU — aimed at providing immediate, actionable and evidence-based solutions to strengthen Arizona’s water security — has already seen great success in patenting technologies, empowering communities and better understanding our state’s water challenges. Additionally, the newly launched Water Institute draws from existing academic capacity across ASU, led by the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory to develop educational, research and communication projects that benefit communities across the world.

The barriers to water resilience are multifaceted: Water is a building block for all life and a driving force behind agricultural, energy and technological development. From the food we eat to the cooling systems that keep our desert summers bearable, water plays a role in just about everything humanity touches. These complexities require a diverse range of expertise, strong collaborative efforts and creativity.

With this unprecedented challenge comes the opportunity to lead a wave of education, technology and collaboration toward water resiliency for all. As a unique test bed for transdisciplinary solutions, ASU is at the forefront of a new mission: to secure a thriving water future in Arizona and beyond.

While all of the Southwest faces a stressed water supply, water resources are not split uniformly between all states in the region. Each state has its own unique set of priorities and management strategies, requiring a more personalized approach.

In Arizona, the annual water demand is roughly 7 million acre-feet that is split between agricultural, municipal and industrial use. Sarah Porter, the inaugural director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at ASU, says there is a lot of variance in how that water is allocated, particularly the water that goes toward municipalities.

“Most people get their water from their city water department — some get their water from a private water provider or private water company,” says Porter, an executive committee member of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative. “A comparatively small number of people get their water another way, typically from a shared well or a well that’s on their property. Under this framework, the responsibility for securing the water supply that is delivered to taps lies with the water provider.”

Putting the responsibility on the water provider means that water portfolios range greatly from city to city. It also means that one city could have a vastly different water portfolio from the next.

“There is a persisting idea that we're all in the same boat in terms of water challenges in Arizona or in the Southwest,” Porter says. “That's simply not the case.”

Amber Wutich, an ASU President’s Professor, director of the Center for Global Health and a 2023 MacArthur Fellow, has dedicated her career to understanding the intersection between water insecurity and the human experience. She says strong water policy is a key element to ensuring future habitability in the Southwest — but it is not a guarantee of water security for all.

“Even great water policy won’t necessarily solve everyone’s problems, and often the most vulnerable get left behind,” says Wutich. “The challenge I am interested in is how to meet the needs of Arizona’s most water-insecure people and communities. Here at ASU, we’re experimenting with new ways to bring together engineered and social infrastructures to ensure water security for all.”

Wutich says water insecurity poses a threat to both physical and mental health, with water insecurity known to contribute to anxiety, depression and PTSD. Wutich leads the “Arizona Water for All” pillar of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative. This pillar of the initiative focuses on increasing participation in community water decision-making, deploying proven water security solutions, and advancing measurement and monitoring of household water insecurity.

While the current system is not perfect, Porter says it comes with a key advantage: Arizona cities have full-time workers who are responsible for ensuring a strong water supply. In central Arizona specifically, the ongoing goal is making sure that there is 100 years of water. This approach also allows for solutions that can account for nuance and local water use; this would not be possible with a one-size-fits-all approach to water management in the Southwest.

Creativity, Porter says, is an area where universities can thrive in the solutions space. As test beds for budding technologies and groundbreaking discoveries, universities can support the discovery phase of solutions. Where a city may be hesitant to invest in a new, unproven technology, institutes of higher education are uniquely positioned to test, expand and then transition new ideas into implementable solutions.

The Kyl Center for Water Policy, for example, provides modeling of Colorado River scenarios to help inform water managers what their risks of shortage are at the municipal or irrigation district level. This level of detailed modeling often goes beyond what a federal or statewide agency can explore given their constraints. Universities, on the other hand, are the perfect place to consider the "what if" questions.

These “what if” questions can prove to be invaluable, especially in a world that is rapidly adapting to human-driven stressors. Climate change and water supplies are closely linked, says Dave White, associate vice president of research advancement in ASU Knowledge Enterprise. Rising temperatures alone impact both water supply availability and water demand — a “double whammy” for regions like the Southwest, says White, who leads the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative.

“Because higher average temperatures and higher extreme temperatures are driving greater levels of evaporation and drying out the soils, you're seeing less water available from the system under these higher temperatures,” he says. “At the same time, those higher temperatures are driving up the demand from plants, which impacts agriculture.”

Last year, White served as the lead author of The White House’s Fifth National Climate Assessment, a report considered to be the scientific consensus regarding climate change impacts, mitigation and adaptation strategies across the country. Twelve ASU faculty members also contributed to the report, which detailed a series of key messages.

The first key message, “Drought and Increasing Aridity Threaten Water Resources," details the intersection of climate change and water insecurity. It also offers a potential solution: Flexible and adaptive approaches to water management may be able to soften the impacts of climate change-driven changes on people, the environment and the economy.

The effects of climate change on our water supply have not gone unnoticed. In 2021, the federal government declared its first-ever water shortage declaration in the Colorado River, a significant water supply in the Southwest. The river system supplies water for 40 million people in seven Western states and Mexico. It also irrigates more than 5 million acres of farmland.

While this shortage spurred important conversations and urgency, White says continued efforts are needed. It can be easy to be comforted by years that offer high snowpack or above-average inflows into the reservoirs, but White says that would be an error.

It would take years of exceptionally strong rainfall and snowpack to combat the megadrought that has persisted across the Southwest for more than 20 years. Through long-term drought and climate change alike, the Colorado River Basin has already undergone structural, systematic changes that pose a new reality to water managers.

“There is a built-in assumption that because we are in a drought, the drought will end,” says Porter. “The reality is that we are looking at a permanent adjustment to our Colorado River supply.”

Porter says that while supplies are dropping, we are not “running out of water.” However, we do have to adjust to using less of the Colorado River. One of the best strategies water managers and policymakers can implement is finding ways to conserve water.

Porter says that while the Phoenix metro area has seen a significant population increase in the last few years, this increase in population density does not always result in a correlated increased water demand. This is less applicable in municipalities located close to the periphery of metropolitan areas — like Buckeye, Queen Creek or Maricopa, for example — but is especially true in more “built out” areas. This is largely due to conservation efforts and built-in supports at the municipal level to support population changes.

Recent numbers are promising: Porter says in the last 20 years, central Arizona experienced about a 45% increase in population but saw only a 14% increase in municipal water demand.

Jay Famiglietti, director of science for the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative and a global futures professor in the School of Sustainability, says metropolitan areas have shown that they can be more water-efficient, partially due to technologies like sewage recycling and stormwater capture.

Both metropolitan and urban areas also use groundwater, a vital part of the natural water cycle. Famiglietti says that while many cities have found ways to conserve water in growing populations, there is another element to consider: how to feed that population. This is where groundwater — an already strong contributor to water supplies — really shines.

“In the Southwest, groundwater is absolutely crucial for food security because we use so much of that water to grow crops,” says Famiglietti. “We have a growing population to grow food for, and we will need to grow food forever. At the same time, groundwater is a fixed resource. We have to understand our supply and how to protect it.”

Famiglietti measures groundwater supply using satellites. These satellites circle our planet and collect data on “mass variations” on the Earth’s surface. These mass variations are typically made up of water, either through snow, soil moisture, river supplies or groundwater. Using a combination of satellite data and measurements taken from the ground, the technology has allowed Famiglietti to put together a global and regional picture of groundwater supplies.

“This provides us a picture like we’ve never seen before,” Famiglietti says. “Using data, we can do a better job of making the changes that matter. There is a saying: You have to do the measurement to do the management.”

Paul Westerhoff, Regents Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at ASU and the Fulton Chair of Environmental Engineering, has seen tremendous development in water technology in the last 20 years alone. A washing machine purchased today, he says, is significantly more water-conscious than a washing machine purchased a few decades ago. From water treatment to water transportation, the Southwest is getting more creative and efficient in its water solutions.

As the area tackles issues presented by reduced water supplies, it has an opportunity to be a global leader in the water solutions space. Westerhoff, the lead of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative’s “Global Center for Water Technology” pillar, develops and deploys advanced technologies for water augmentation, conservation, treatment and reuse. The Global Center for Water Technology supports over 20 faculty research teams on new technology development, including patents and startup companies, and working on big challenges posed by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

Water and technology are deeply intertwined — there is the technology you need to clean and transport water, and there is the technology that needs water to function. Whether you are in a restaurant, your home, a hospital or a space station, water is all around you.

“Even when you don't see water, taste water or touch water, you're still using water,” says Westerhoff. “Those systems are becoming more and more water- and energy-efficient, and there is more we can continue to do.”

Earlier this year, Westerhoff hosted the first-ever Atmospheric Water Harvesting Summit at ASU. Atmospheric water harvesting is an emerging method of water collection that draws water from humidity in the air. The summit gathered participants from around the world, and has since resulted in a global seminar series and newly created Atmospheric Water Harvesting Association.

Westerhoff says times of urgency inspire innovation, and Arizona is currently shifting from a technology demonstrator to a technology innovator.

“We're really seizing this opportunity to take a bolder step in developing technologies like atmospheric water harvesting and others that will hopefully be exported to the world,” he says. “In the meantime, creating these technologies here in Arizona supports local job growth. As we are tackling these issues, people you know will likely get hired by companies that start here. They'll be able to stay local and have great jobs.”

Upmanu Lall, director of the Water Institute at ASU, says scaling solutions to the global scale will take major collaborative efforts both inside and outside of ASU. The Water Institute, which launched in March of this year, aims to bring together discourse across the university on topics related to water.

“There are around 200 faculty who work on topics related to water here at ASU,” Lall says. “The goal is to unite those 200 people and collaborate to strengthen all of our efforts. From there, we are able to more efficiently work in teams to participate in robust engagement with governments,  the private sector and with nongovernmental organizations.”

In addition to connecting faculty members, the Water Institute aims to create a national consortium of universities, industry and public agencies to assess and meet needs for water and climate adaptation. The institute will also work with the World Bank and related organizations to address groundwater depletion and climate hazard impacts across the world. Other priorities include developing a program in weather engineering, in addition to exploring how to reduce evaporation and increase energy production through the installation of floating solar electricity technology on Western reservoirs.

Lall says it is a university’s responsibility to drive policy and solutions efforts in the water space, but also to provide relevant training for future water leaders. Through the College of Global Futures and the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, students are exposed firsthand to a transdisciplinary approach to water problem-solving.

“In the process of educating students, we are also improving the human workforce that we need to solve these issues,” Lall says. “Water insecurity won’t be solved in the next 10 years. It will take generations to develop solutions, and then to redevelop solutions as the challenges shift. It’s crucial that we give students more than the tools to write a paper. They need to be embedded in projects and initiatives that matter.”