“Agencies who have a stake in the Colorado River Basin are not necessarily in agreement about changes in policy,” says Enrique Vivoni. “As a result, decision-makers are seeking unbiased information, data and models from universities and other research organizations that can help them in the difficult tasks that lie ahead.”

“Local leaders need to engage in candid conversations with their city’s water resources staff and economic development staff to ensure that any new high-volume user is a good fit with the community,” says Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.

“Arizona is blessed to have multiple water sources,” said Enrique Vivoni, Fulton Professor of Hydrosystems Engineering at Arizona State University. For Professor Vivoni, the future of Arizona is water. “We see for sure the impacts of climate change on the water resources of the Colorado River,” said Vivoni.

 “We have these rules in place to protect people from buying a home without a water supply, so that’s really the effect here,” Porter told The Hill. “The state is telling developers you can no longer rely on the water underneath the future subdivision as the water for that subdivision.”  

What Arizona is proposing is not quite managed retreat — up to 80,000 under-construction homes in already-permitted subdivisions have still been given the green light to build — but what the new rules will do is send a strong message that the state will no longer be subsidizing sprawl at the expense of its own water security, as Sarah Porter, director of Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy, told CNN: “It’s going to make it harder for developments to spring up on raw desert in the far-flung parts of town where developers like to develop.”

“We want to be the greatest semiconductor and microchip manufacturer in the world. We can do that. We have enough water, but our food prices are going to go up because we’re not going to grow as much food,” Rhett Larson said. “Those are the hard conversations that Arizona has to have right now.”

“Groundwater is really the key to long-term sustainability in desert cities like Phoenix,” said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist and professor in Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability. “So anything that we can do to save water moving forward becomes critically important, not just for right now, but for future generations.”

 “It’s another impediment to that kind of development, like new subdivisions out in Buckeye or Queen Creek.” Porter said the change won’t necessarily curtail development in the booming Phoenix metro area, but it could push it towards bigger and older cities like Tempe and Scottsdale. Nor is it expected to curtail water use for industry and manufacturing – an important distinction given Arizona is quickly becoming a hub for advanced manufacturing of technology, including semi-conductor chips.

“This deal does not address the long-term water sustainability challenges in the region,” Dave White, who specializes in water sustainability at Arizona State University, said.

Series of ASU courses use the power of storytelling to connect students across disciplines. In response to Arizona’s unprecedented water challenges, the Narrative Storytelling Initiative at Arizona State University is engaging students in conversations about urgent water issues through a series of interlinked courses.