How can we decolonize education? Decolonial futurist at ASU, Dr. Bea Rodriguez-Fransen, shares three practical strategies to undo colonial mindsets and design a better, collective future.

The focus on water, particularly vital for Arizona, is aligned with the broader objective of integrating sustainability into the fabric of regional development, an effort led by Paul Westerhoff, a regents professor at ASU's School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment.

“Essentially, cities need to carefully consider the trade-offs between a program like this (grass removal rebates), or investing in other ways to get people to reduce the amount of water they’re using on their yard,” said Sarah Porter, the director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.

Conservation is necessary but it's not enough to achieve "safe yield," the balance between water pumped and water replenished, according to a report by the Kyl Center for Water Policy, authored by Ferris and center Director Sarah Porter.

“The fact that groundwater depletion has been accelerating in such a large number of food-producing regions underscores the critical links between food and water security, and that both are at far greater risk around the world than most people realize,” said Jay Famiglietti.

“Not only are things getting worse, but in some places the pace of decline is accelerating—and that includes California and Arizona,” Jay Famiglietti says. “We’ve been kicking the can down the road for a long time.” 

Paradoxically enough, the steady march of master-planned communities to the horizon — an Arizona cliché — provides big hydrological savings because of the conversion of water-guzzling farmland into more parsimonious suburban uses, Sarah Porter, the director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, told me.

The department’s interpretation of current law doesn’t let the agency consider projected water use to halt new irrigation in an area, which further limits its ability to establish regulatory areas, according to Sarah Porter, Director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy. 

"As shown in the Fifth National Climate Assessment, the Southwest — including Arizona — is taking action on climate change,” said Dave White, director of the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation at ASU, as well as lead author of the NCA5 chapter on the Southwest region.

Drought and less snowpack are huge threats to Southwest communities in particular. The report’s Southwest chapter, led by Arizona State University climate scientist Dave White, found the region was significantly drier from 1991 to 2020 than the three decades before.