Farmer Ed Curry, who developed various strains of chili peppers whose seeds are used by 90% of the peppers growing industry, said in the video, “It was fun to watch the neighbors who were pitted against each other come together. I’m honored to be a part of the solution rather than be a part of the problem.”

Diaz-Infante is also a researcher with the Arizona Water for All (AW4A) team, one of several pillars under the new statewide Arizona Water Innovation Initiative. As part of the AW4A team, he works under the leadership of President’s Professor Amber Wutich to collect data and do fieldwork with other scientists, legal scholars and community organizations who have ties to colonias communities. 

In total, the federal government, Mexico, seven states and 29 sovereign tribes are involved in negotiating how to operate the Colorado River system, Sarah Porter explained.

“My work really is dedicated to understanding some of the darkest parts of the human experience,” Amber Wutich said. “More recently, I have started to go back in history and look at how humans have faced moments of extreme climate distress. There is suffering, yes. There is death. But it’s also true that humans have historically faced these challenges with enormous innovation and transformations in our society. I’m hopeful that if we really do invest in social infrastructure, which is what gives rise to human innovation and ingenuity, great things could happen for humanity.”

Paul Westerhoff, Regents Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at ASU, the Fulton Chair of Environmental Engineering and director of Global Center for Water Technology, moderated the event. He said that while atmospheric water harvesting technology has gathered interest from industries like health care, home appliances, semiconductor manufacturing, the military and data centers, it is an underutilized area for progress.

What have we learned from millennia of water insecurity, of climate changes and disasters, of building along freshwater ways and the ocean, that we can apply today? Learn more from Dr. Amber Wutich.

The Kyl Center examined the growth in the Valley regarding groundwater use and the consequences that come with it. The report is said to provide communities with solutions to become “water resilient.”

Farms and ranches will have to make painful cuts to their water use, according to Sarah Porter with the Kyl Center for Water Policy. “You’re talking about farmers not being able to grow as much, potentially really impacting rural economies,” she said.

Wutich said water scarcity disproportionately impacts poorer communities and asked the audience if they knew the saying, “Water runs uphill toward money.” She said water-insecure communities have less capacity to solve problems with sophisticated engineering and are more likely to rely on social infrastructure, such as borrowing water from a neighbor or buying unregulated water from vendors selling from a truck or pushcart.

“In the Phoenix area, and Tucson, there is a great capacity for the older cities to grow, mostly upward, because they have fairly robust water supplies,” Sarah Porter said. But even those jurisdictions are seeking new — or new-used — water sources.