It’s not just the Rockies feeling the heat. Here in Arizona, researchers found snow is disappearing at a dramatic pace. More than 90% of the snow in the Upper Black River Basin, a key watershed feeding the Salt River system, melted in less than three weeks.

The finding comes from a new study by Arizona State University and the Salt River Project, which used airborne surveys to track snowpack across the region. That system supplies water to millions of people in the Phoenix metro area, meaning even small changes can have big impacts.

“Water users in Maricopa, Pinal and Pima County who receive CAP water, that includes tribes, cities and industries, will all experience cuts if the cuts get very deep,” Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, said in an interview.

Results from a new airborne snow survey over northeastern Arizona found that due to a dry and warm winter, most of the snow water measured in January and February had melted by mid-March, offering water managers an unusually clear view of how quickly the season changed. 

“For the first time, we were able to quantify the changes in Arizona’s snow conditions using airborne observations,” Vivoni said. “Despite near-average conditions early in the season, a snow drought across the western U.S. since late December has limited accumulation."

One major rub between the lower- and upper-basin states, for decades, has centered on water use, according to Kathryn Sorensen, director of research at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy. While stakeholders downstream are using their full allocations, upstream states like Wyoming have not — and they want to protect their potential full allocation.

“Both arguments have some reasonableness, and that’s one of the reasons why we are where we are and negotiations have stalled,” Sorensen told WyoFile.

“Just convening and bringing people together from a diversity of backgrounds is great because we need to have important conversations,” said Jay Famiglietti, Global Futures professor in ASU’s School of Sustainability, where he serves as director of science for the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative. “The opportunities to transform through technology, and for academics to partner with these startups, are just amazing. It’s a fantastic opportunity, especially just before World Water Day.”

"I do think its a good sign people are willing to come to the table and talk," said Kathryn Sorensen of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.

"What happens when we have extreme heat, even now in the early spring, is that the snow melts faster," said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at ASU. "A lot of that snowmelt evaporates into the air instead of basically making its way kind of percolating through the ground to the river."

“People are pretty united about the state’s position, and I think it’s because the state’s position is we’re not going to take a deal that leaves us worse off than no deal,” said Sarah Porter, director for Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy. “… I don’t expect to have perfect unanimity in terms of ‘what do we do next.’”

In 1991, Arizona officials, already well aware that the surface water supplies on which their thriving cities depended were being depleted, designated several aquifers as “transportation basins,” from which water could be pumped into the Central Arizona Project should the need arise. 

These basins “were specifically set aside as casualties,” explained Kathryn Sorensen, director of research for the Kyl Center for Water Policy. “It is allowable under state law to essentially drain them and then import the water into the Valley of the Sun and other areas.”