ASU researchers are working with Arizona water managers to develop a tool to encourage more sustainable landscaping.

Professor Daoquin Tong is with ASU’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. She says they hope to create large-scale water savings for the Central Arizona Project region by identifying areas of nonfunctional turfgrass and offering sustainable landscaping alternatives.

“The idea we can keep adding to replenishment obligations in a world where the Colorado is drying up and everybody is competing for existing groundwater supplies is nuts,” said Kathleen Ferris, a former ADWR director and an Arizona State University water researcher who has co-authored two highly critical reports on the replenishment district.

Researchers from Arizona State University seek to understand the reasons for people choosing whether or not to participate in grass-removal programs. The project focuses on the programs in Scottsdale.

"In many parts of Arizona, there is virtually no natural groundwater recharge. And I think that is something people don’t appreciate. In much of Arizona, probably well over half of Arizona … the groundwater recharge is so low that it’s almost immaterial, in vast swaths of the state. That’s just a hydrological reality that it took some time for me to come to terms with," said Sarah Porter.

“The kind of home building that has been so much a hallmark of growth in the Phoenix area, the kind of sprawling exurban development – that is pretty much paused,” said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.

A couple of weeks after the Hands Off protest, news of the dismissal of almost 400 contributors to the Sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA) mandated by Congress clearly showed that the second Trump administration’s policies are not just anti-science but outright vengeful and destructive. The firings leave states across the West — from Washington to Nevada and Arizona — without the ability to prepare for climate impacts such as extreme heat, wildfires and drought.

In a social media post, Arizona State University scientist Dave White, a lead author of the 2023 Fifth National Climate Assessment, said he and his colleagues remain committed to scientific integrity. “We must continue to push forward,” White wrote. “The stakes are too high.”

The Arizona Legislature passed a bipartisan bill Monday intended to increase the state’s housing supply while conserving water. The bill is known as “ag-to-urban.” It allows developers to buy water rights from farmers who give up their agricultural land for homes in metro Phoenix and Pinal County. Sarah Porter, Director at Kyl Center for Water Policy, joins Arizona Horizon to share more on this bill.

Whether the measure will actually lead to large tracts of ag lands being converted is an unknown, said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. She said the moratorium created the unintended consequence of preventing farmers from retiring their land and cutting water use, and SB1611 would remove that disincentive. 

“You have to be careful in how you think about it in terms of water,” said Kathryn Sorensen, director of research for the Kyl Center for Water Policy and former director of Phoenix Water Services. “They’re obviously going to use water. They’re going to follow the laws of physics.”

“It’s great that they’re not going to use groundwater,” she said. “But is there a higher and better use for that reclaimed water? That’s the real comparison.”

State lawmakers have sent to Gov. Katie Hobbs a bill that some supporters are calling the most significant piece of water legislation since the landmark 1980 Groundwater Management Act. The measure, known as the "ag-to-urban" bill, would allow developers to buy the water rights from farmers who are ready to move on from agriculture. 

Kathleen Ferris, senior research fellow at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at ASU and a former director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, joined The Show to talk about the potential impact of this bill.