The Southwest monsoon season is changing, forcing ranchers and Indigenous farmers to adapt
Changing storms in the Southwest are altering timeless food traditions as researchers grapple with how to study the monsoon’s erratic nature.
Solar growth cushions Colorado River hydropower declines
Lakes Mead and Powell, the basin’s two largest reservoirs, are approaching critical levels in which hydropower from their dams (Hoover and Glen Canyon, respectively) would be severely curtailed or altogether cease.
‘This system cannot be sustained’
This year, tribal nations enter negotiations over Colorado River water.
Against the flow
Picuris Pueblo says its water has been stolen and shunted over a mountain to the Mora Valley — where irrigators claim rights to it, too.
Praying for rain
The Zuni tribe's homeland is one of the most parched sections of the country. The tribe has already declared three drought emergencies in the last 15 years. Will it survive the next one?
Arizona’s future water shock
Smaller cities. Soaring water prices. Scorched desert towns.
Water Connections
Where groundwater gives way to warm springs, a fight continues over building a new desert town outside Las Vegas.
Two Southwest tribes raise concerns over uranium storage
In Utah, a pool of toxic waste is emitting dangerous amounts of radon to the surrounding communities, including the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.
New Rules
As climate change and overuse reduce water supplies, the gap between “paper water” (the legal right to use water) and “actual water” (what’s available) is widening.
Colorado River crisis giving tribes new opportunities to right century-old water wrongs
Early involvement in negotiating new Colorado River guidelines will be critical for tribes to determine their future.