For more than a quarter-century, ASU Professor Jay Famiglietti and his research team have been working on a satellite system that he says can track groundwater supply changes and depletion from space via the NASA GRACE mission.

Wutich also serves on the strategy team for the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative, a state-funded initiative aimed at protecting Arizona’s water security for future generations. She directs the Water for All program within the initiative, which aims to use engineering and social infrastructure to improve water security for vulnerable households and ensure communities that are politically excluded from water access and decision-making can participate in future-focused discussions that impact them most. 

Phoenix is now the nation's fifth most populous city, and it's unlikely to stop growing soon. There are reasons for optimism when it comes to water, write Sarah Porter and Kathryn Sorenson of the Kyl Center for Water Policy and the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative.

The MacArthur Foundation named the winners of its 2023 "genius grants" this week. Arizona State University anthropologist Amber Wutich, who received a grant for her research into water insecurity, joins CBS News to discuss the impact of access to safe and clean drinking water.

"We ended up creating an amazing bond, community and interpersonal experience," said Adriene Jenik, co-director of Drylab 2023, an art and sustainability-based initiative sponsored by ASU. “Understanding the sacredness of water created a special bond between us.” The new initiative, sponsored by ASU’s Impact Water – Arizona, part of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative, kicked off Oct. 1.

“Ninety percent of the water used indoors in the Phoenix area is treated and recycled, yet many Phoenix residents we’ve spoken to think that taking shorter showers and conserving water indoors will help. The majority of a home’s water is, in fact, lost through outdoor landscaping,” said Claire Lauer, who also serves as the chief UX architect for the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative.

“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.”