Arizona

The long-term drying of the American Southwest poses a gathering and measurable threat to hydropower generation in the Colorado River basin. Should Lake Mead, the reservoir formed by Hoover Dam,...

BUCKEYE, Ariz. – It was supposed to be called Cipriani, a master planned community with more than 9,700 homes at the western fringe of this sprawling desert city in...

BUCKEYE, Ariz. – Beneath the exhausting Sonoran sun, an hour’s drive west of Phoenix, heavy machines are methodically scraping the desert bare. Where mesquite and saguaro once stood, the former...

Deep below Arizona sit large volumes of water that are less salty than the ocean, but not easily used. If it were all pumped to the surface and purified, this brackish groundwater would supply Arizona’s water needs for a century or more. Problem is, it can’t all be pumped.

Ancient rainstorms may have sculpted the red planet, similar to the monsoon rains that helped shape the Southwest’s landscape.

PARKER, Arizona – South of Headgate Rock Dam, beyond riverbanks lined with willow and mesquite, the broad floodplain of the Colorado River spreads across emerald fields and sun-bleached earth.  The...

Brett Fleck does not have an easy job. He manages water for a city in the desert. He has to keep taps flowing while facing a complicated equation: The...

As severe water scarcity becomes an increasingly real and dire prospect for Arizona, looking south to Sonora offers important insight.

This page features aerial photos of Arizona's Salt River, including its confluence with the Verde River. Both the Salt and Verde are tributaries of the Gila River and part of the Colorado...

This page features aerial photos of Arizona's Granite Reef Diversion Dam, along the Salt River near Mesa. Completed in 1908, the dam is only 29 feet high but 1,000 feet long. It was...