“This is an early warning. There is something that needs to be fixed,” said Karem Abdelmohsen, an ASU researcher and co-author of a study on groundwater changes over the last 20 years. “Groundwater storage is our savings account,” Abdelmohsen said. “Surface water is our spending account. And in our situation, we are using both accounts at the same time.”

Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, also expressed concern. She doubts it's a good long term solution, especially with shortages of Colorado River water and the chances that the drought-caused shortages mean the amount the state can withdraw will shrink.

"If left unmanaged for another decade, groundwater levels will continue to drop, putting Arizona’s water security and food production at far greater risk than is being acknowledged,” said Jay Famiglietti of ASU, previously a senior water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Sarah Porter is the director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. She says this inter-basin transfer isn't a total answer to ensuring that Arizona has enough water to continue to grow.

"Increasingly, I think there's a recognition that we need to find some other water supplies."

ASU researchers are working with Arizona water managers to develop a tool to encourage more sustainable landscaping.

Professor Daoquin Tong is with ASU’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. She says they hope to create large-scale water savings for the Central Arizona Project region by identifying areas of nonfunctional turfgrass and offering sustainable landscaping alternatives.

“The idea we can keep adding to replenishment obligations in a world where the Colorado is drying up and everybody is competing for existing groundwater supplies is nuts,” said Kathleen Ferris, a former ADWR director and an Arizona State University water researcher who has co-authored two highly critical reports on the replenishment district.

Researchers from Arizona State University seek to understand the reasons for people choosing whether or not to participate in grass-removal programs. The project focuses on the programs in Scottsdale.

"In many parts of Arizona, there is virtually no natural groundwater recharge. And I think that is something people don’t appreciate. In much of Arizona, probably well over half of Arizona … the groundwater recharge is so low that it’s almost immaterial, in vast swaths of the state. That’s just a hydrological reality that it took some time for me to come to terms with," said Sarah Porter.

“The kind of home building that has been so much a hallmark of growth in the Phoenix area, the kind of sprawling exurban development – that is pretty much paused,” said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.