Photos: Santa Cruz River in Tucson, February 2021

This page features photos of the Santa Cruz River in Tucson, Arizona. The Santa Cruz begins in southern Arizona, dips into northern Mexico, and meets the Gila River, a tributary of the Colorado River, south of Phoenix.

Water used to flow perennially along parts of the river, but overpumping of groundwater, overgrazing of surrounding land, and other factors caused many of those surface flows to cease.

In recent years, the city of Tucson has released recycled water into the river channel near downtown as part of the Santa Cruz River Heritage Project.

For more on the restoration project, see this story by Tony Davis of the Arizona Daily Star.

DateFebruary 3, 2021
LocationTucson, Arizona (map)
CreditTed Wood/The Water Desk
RightsFree to reuse under Creative Commons license.

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