Arizona's Hundred-Year Answer to a Thirsty Future
It is fair to ask whether it’s wise to buy a home in Arizona when the state's apparently running out of water. With the Colorado River in the headlines so often, it’s a common refrain. But surprisingly, according to the Arizona Department of Water Resources, the state uses less water today than it did in 1957, when only a fraction of today’s population lived here. This is largely because farms, which still use about 72% of the state’s water, have cut back by farming fewer acres and using methods like laser-leveled fields that spread irrigation water more evenly.
Phoenix’s Agricultural Past Shapes Its Present Neighborhoods
A friend and I were driving shelter dogs to Starbucks for pup cups the other week, and somewhere in Arcadia I noticed lawns that made no sense. We passed rows of suburban homes fronted by yards so lush they looked out of place in this parched metro. Each lawn sat under a few inches of standing water, held in by a low dirt berm. My knee-jerk reaction was, “What the–?” My friend, who's a native Phoenician, gave me that patient look they save for transplants tripping over what's supposed to be obvious. “It's flood irrigation, left over from when this was all citrus groves.”