• WATER SECURITYIn a First, California Cracks Down on Farms Guzzling Groundwater

    By Jake Bittle

    In much of the United States, groundwater extraction is unregulated and unlimited. This lack of regulation has allowed farmers nationwide to empty aquifers of trillions of gallons of water for irrigation and livestock. In many places, such as California’s Central Valley, the results have been devastating. California has just imposed a first-of-its-kind mandatory fee on water pumping by farmers in the Tulare Lake subbasin, one of the state’s largest farming areas.

  • WATER SECURITYProblems with Glen Canyon Dam Could Jeopardize Water Flowing to Western States

    By Kyle Dunphey

    Without upgrades to the Glen Canyon dam’s infrastructure, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s ability to get water downstream to the lower Colorado River basin as required by the Colorado River Compact could be in jeopardy. This may be, in the words of concerned groups, “the most urgent water problem” for the Colorado River and the 40 million people who rely on it.

  • WATER SECURITYWhere Did All the Water Go? New Study Explores Water Use in the Colorado River Basin.

    By Kyle Dunphey

    The final 100 miles of the Colorado River is a shell of its former self — nearly 10 miles wide at the turn of the century, farmers had more water than they knew what to do with. Now, a weave of concrete canals brings water to sprawling industrial farms situated in the Mexicali Valley, with much of the natural riverbed dry and the wildlife sparse. Where did all the water go?

  • WATER SECURITYStates and Tribes Scramble to Reach Colorado River Deals Before Election

    By Jake Bittle

    There are three main forces driving the conflict on the Colorado River. The first is an outdated legal system that guarantees more water to seven Western states than is actually available in the river during most years. The second is the exclusion of Native American tribes from this legal system. The third is climate change, which is heating up the western United States and diminishing the winter snowfall and rainwater that feed the river. Landmark agreements would cut big states’ water usage for decades and deliver water to the Navajo Nation.

  • WATER SECURITYIn $100 Million Colorado River Deal, Water and Power Collide

    By Alex Hager

    The Colorado River District plans to buy the water rights that flow through Colorado’s Shoshone hydropower plant. The acquisition is seen as pivotal for a wide swath of the state, and has been co-signed by farmers, environmental groups, and local governments.

  • CRITICAL MINERALSIs the Southwest Too Dry for a Mining Boom?

    By Wyatt Myskow

    Critical minerals for the clean energy transition are abundant in the Southwest, but the dozens of mines proposed to access them will require vast sums of water, something in short supply in the desert.

  • WATR SECURITYGlobal Groundwater Depletion Is Accelerating, but Is Not Inevitable

    By Harrison Tasoff

    Groundwater is rapidly declining across the globe, often at accelerating rates. Researchers raise the alarm over declining water resources, but offer instructive examples of where things are going well, and how groundwater depletion can be solved.

  • WATER SECURITYGroundwater Levels Are Falling Worldwide — but There Are Solutions

    By Jake Bittle

    The world’s groundwater aquifers are taking a beating. Decades of unrestrained pumping by thirsty farms and fast-growing cities have drained these underground rock beds, which hold more than 95 percent of the planet’s drinkable water. New research shows how to protect the aquifers that hold most of the world’s fresh water.

  • WATER SECURITYUnlocking Energy-Efficient Solution to Global Water Crisis

    Researchers achieved a major breakthrough in Redox Flow Desalination (RFD), an emerging electrochemical technique that can turn seawater into potable drinking water and also store affordable renewable energy. Researchers achieved a major breakthrough in Redox Flow Desalination (RFD), an emerging electrochemical technique that can turn seawater into potable drinking water and also store affordable renewable energy.

  • WATER SECURITYHybrid Urban Water Sourcing Model

    By Patrick Kurp

    Houston’s water and wastewater system could be more resilient with the development of hybrid urban water supply systems that combine conventional, centralized water sources with reclaimed wastewater. Reclaimed wastewater could make supply systems more resilient.

  • WATER SECURITYHow Can California Solve Its Water Woes? By Flooding Its Best Farmland.

    By Jake Bittle

    Restored floodplains in the state’s agricultural heartland are fighting both flooding and drought. But their fate rests with California’s powerful farmers.

  • WATER SECURITYSeaworthy Solution Yields Green Energy, Fresh Water

    By Blaine Friedlander

    Engineers have refined a model that not only cultivates green energy, but also desalinates ocean water for large, drought-stricken coastal populations.By pumping seawater to a mountaintop reservoir and then employing gravity to send the salty water down to a co-located hydropower plant and a reverse osmosis desalination facility, science can satisfy the energy and hydration needs of coastal cities with one system.

  • WATER SECURITYThe Historic Claims That Put a Few California Farming Families First in Line for Colorado River Water

    By Janet Wilson

    Twenty families in the Imperial Valley received a whopping 386.5 billion gallons of the river’s water last year — more than three Western states. Century-old water rights guarantee that supply.

  • WATER SECURITYScientists Map Loss of Groundwater Storage Around the World

    Global water resources are stretched by climate change and human population growth, and farms and cities are increasingly turning to groundwater to fill their needs. Unfortunately, the pumping of groundwater can cause the ground surface above to sink. A new study maps, for the first time, the permanent loss of aquifer storage capacity occurring globally.

  • WATER SECURITYInnovative Way to Predict Saltwater Intrusion into Groundwater

    Working closely with local conservation group, researchers develop new model to predict climate-change driven saltwater intrusion that is transferable to other vulnerable coastal communities.