Mobile homes in Arizona make up about 5% of the state’s housing. For thousands of Arizonans living in them, the summer isn’t just uncomfortable; it can be deadly.

“People who tend to live in this type of housing can be elderly, and we also know that people who are elderly are more susceptible to heat,” said Patricia Solis, executive director of the Knowledge Exchange for Resilience at ASU.

Scientists at Arizona State University are developing innovative solutions to address the growing needs of the 'Silicon Desert', including water recycling techniques, increased solar power utilisation, and water credit systems. However, questions remain about whether these measures will be sufficient to balance the tech industry's demands with the state's limited resources. 

Do we need more water and where will we get it? Those were questions Sarah Porter addressed during her summit presentation. Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at ASU and self-proclaimed “water nerd,” discussed the significant water challenges confronting Arizona — particularly as the state plans for future growth and development. Porter focused on two of Arizona’s most stressed water resources: the Colorado River and groundwater.

“Fundamentally, bad hydrology is crushing valiant conservation and management efforts,” said Kathryn Sorensen, research director at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy.

Enrique Vivoni, a professor of hydrosystems engineering at Arizona State University, told CAP board members on Aug. 7 that dry soils are soaking up precipitation before it can reach the river, meaning good snow doesn't always mean good flow.

"Under drought, the relationship of hydrology with precipitation is changing in Colorado River," Vivoni said.

Professor Paul Westerhoff at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment told H2O Radio that fabs can be sustainable but would require companies to invest in ways to recycle water to continuously bring it back to an ultrapure state to avoid tapping into local supplies.

He and his colleagues are researching what reuse technologies and policies would be necessary to make facilitates “water neutral” or at least close to it.

"There's very few places now that are not drying," study co-author Jay Famiglietti, a professor in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, told Live Science. "I've been watching it for 20 years, and it's just gotten worse, and worse, and worse."

Every year, an area equivalent to twice the size of California dries out, creating mega-drying regions under dry extremes.

The study by researchers at Arizona State University estimates that about 68% of the loss in terrestrial water storage is due to groundwater depletion. Moreover, it estimates that three-quarters of the world's population live in areas that have been losing freshwater.

“Trends are pointing to the fact that the Colorado River is becoming drier and I think it would be safe to say that the Central Arizona Project won’t be as large a provider of water as at present,” said Enrique Vivoni, ASU’s Fulton Professor of Hydrosystems Engineering in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and the director of the Center for Hydrologic Innovations. “So, if that’s the case, it means Arizona will have to start thinking about replacing that water supply. That would require investments.”

Building from our long-standing partnership with Arizona State University’s Center for Hydrologic Innovations, ASU applied for and received a three-year, $1 million grant from NASA’s Earth Science Division in 2022 to identify short-term hydrologic indicators and improve CAP’s long-range scenario planning capabilities to inform decision-making for the Colorado River.