"The continued decline and lack of recovery of water in reservoir storage conveys the clear message that our efforts to balance use with supply and to recover storage have not succeeded. The Colorado River water crisis endures," the researchers Jack Schmidt of Utah State University, Kathryn Sorensen of Arizona State University, John Fleck and Katherine Tara of the University of New Mexico and Eric Kuhn, a longtime Colorado River historian and author wrote. 

“What we were looking for was evidence of changing hydrology around the world,” said Jay Famiglietti, co-author of the study published in Science. “What we found was this unprecedented decrease in soil moisture in the early part of the 21st century, which took us by surprise.”

The idea is to use gels, membranes, mesh or other materials1 to trap water from what researchers call the “really big invisible river” in the atmosphere. Then fans push air over the materials and the collected water is released when heat is applied. Just looking at the Phoenix area, that invisible river carries 60 times more water — in the form of humidity — than the water Arizona gets from the Colorado River every year, ASU Prof. Paul Westerhoff told ASU News.

A new virtual reality project developed by an interdisciplinary team at Arizona State University has earned the 2025 WateReuse Award for Excellence in Outreach and Education. Led by Professor Claire Lauer, the project’s two immersive VR experiences — one headset-based and one web-based — offer Arizona residents an interactive way to explore advanced water purification, or AWP, plants and learn about state-of-the-art water recycling methods that were recently approved for implementation at the state level.

At Arizona State University, experts in the field recently gathered for the second International Atmospheric Water Harvesting Summit hosted in collaboration with the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Global Center for Water Technology, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, Arizona Water Innovation Initiative and Southwest Sustainability Engine. ASU News spoke with Paul Westerhoff, a Regents Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, who chaired the summit.

Reclamation is “not only the manager of the Colorado system, but they’re functionally the technical experts for the seven states and water users as we try to figure out what the new management guidelines should look like,” said Sarah Porter, the Kyl Center water expert. But western water users see new Interior Sec. Burgum as someone who “brings an understanding of western natural resources and roll up his sleeves,” Porter noted.

“Getting the legislation through and signed is really the last of the very hard steps that have to be taken,” said Kyl Center for Water Policy Director Sarah Porter. “They need to know how much water they have a right to. They need the infrastructure to use the water, and once that’s settled it allows the tribes to do all kinds of other things.”

The Kyl Center for Water Policy recently released a study on tap water affordability in Arizona. The study assessed the rates of 659 water providers across the state against two metrics of affordability. Grant Heminger, Policy and Research Analyst at the Kyl Center, joined Horizon to discuss.