Arizona is one of the fastest-growing states in the U.S., with an economy that offers many opportunities for workers and businesses. But it faces a daunting challenge: a water crisis that could seriously constrain its economic growth and vitality.

A recent report that projected a roughly 4% shortfall in groundwater supplies in the Phoenix area over the next 100 years prompted the state to curtail new approval of groundwater-dependent residential development in some of the region’s fast-growing suburbs. Moreover, negotiations continue over dwindling supplies from the Colorado River, which historically supplied more than a third of the state’s water.

As a partial solution, the Arizona Water Infrastructure Finance Authority is exploring a proposal to import desalinated water from Mexico. Conceptualized by IDE, an Israeli company with extensive experience in the desalination sector, this mega-engineering project calls for building a plant in Mexico and piping the water about 200 miles and uphill more than 2,000 feet to Arizona.

Ultimately, the project is slated to cost more than US$5 billion and provide fresh water at nearly 10 times the cost of water Arizona currently draws from the Colorado River, not including long-term energy and maintenance costs.

Is this a wise investment? It is hard to say, since details are still forthcoming. It is also unclear how the proposal fits with Arizona’s plans for investing in its water supplies – because, unlike some states, Arizona has no state water plan.

As researchers who focus on water law, policy and management, we recommend engineered projects like this one be considered as part of a broader water management portfolio that responds holistically to imbalances in supply and demand. And such decisions should address known and potential consequences and costs down the road. Israel’s approach to desalination offers insights that Arizona would do well to consider.

Lands and waters at risk

Around the world, water engineering projects have caused large-scale ecological damage that governments now are spending heavily to repair. Draining and straightening the Florida Everglades in the 1950s and ′60s, which seriously harmed water quality and wildlife, is one well-known example.

Israel’s Hula wetlands is another. In the 1950s, Israeli water managers viewed the wetlands north of the Sea of Galilee as a malaria-infested swamp that, if drained, would eradicate mosquitoes and open up the area for farming. The project was an unmitigated failure that led to dust storms, land degradation and the loss of many unique animals and plants.

Arizona is in crisis now due to a combination of water management gaps and climatic changes. Groundwater withdrawals, which in much of rural Arizona remain unregulated, include unchecked pumping by foreign agricultural interests that ship their crops overseas. Moreover, with the Colorado River now in its 23rd year of drought, Arizona is being forced to reduce its dependence on the river and seek new water sources.

The desalination plant that Arizona is considering would be built in Puerto Peñasco, a Mexican resort town on the northern edge of the Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortez. Highly saline brine left over from the desalination process would be released into the gulf.

Because this inlet has an elongated, baylike geography, salt could concentrate in its upper region, harming endangered aquatic species such as the totoaba fish and the vaquita porpoise, the world’s most endangered marine mammal.

The pipeline that would carry desalinated water to Arizona would cross through Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a fragile desert ecosystem and UNESCO biosphere reserve that has already been damaged by construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall. To run the facility, IDE proposes to build a power plant in Arizona and lay transmission lines across the same fragile desert.

No single solution

Israel has adapted to water scarcity and has learned from its disastrous venture in the Hula wetlands. Today the country has a water sector master plan that is regularly updated and draws on water recycling and reuse, as well as a significant desalination program.

Israel also has implemented extensive water conservation, efficiency and recycling programs, as well as a broad economic review of desalination. Together, these sources now meet most of the nation’s water needs, and Israel has become a leader in both water technology and policy innovation.

Water rights and laws in Arizona differ from those of Israel, and Arizona isn’t as close to seawater. Nonetheless, in our view Israel’s approach is relevant as Arizona works to close its water demand-supply gap.

Steps Arizona can take now

In our view, Arizona would do well to follow Israel’s lead. A logical first step would be making conservation programs, which are required in some parts of Arizona, mandatory statewide.

Irrigated agriculture uses more than 70% of Arizona’s water supply, and most of the state’s irrigated lands use flood irrigation – pumping or bringing water into fields and letting it flow over the ground. Greater use of drip irrigation, which delivers water to plant roots through plastic pipes, and other water-saving techniques and technologies would reduce agricultural water use.

Arizona households, which sometimes use as much as 70% of residential water for lawns and landscaping, also have a conservation role to play. And the mining sector’s groundwater use presently is largely exempt from state regulations and withdrawal restrictions.

A proactive and holistic water management approach should apply to all sectors of the economy, including industry. Arizona also should continue to expand programs for agricultural, municipal and industrial wastewater reuse.

Desalination need not be off the table. But, as in Israel, we see it as part of a multifaceted and integrated series of solutions. By exploring the economic, technical and environmental feasibility of alternative solutions, Arizona could develop a water portfolio that would be far more likely than massive investments in seawater desalination to achieve the sustainable and secure water future that the state seeks.

Clive Lipchin is affiliated with the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies.

Gabriel Eckstein and Sharon B. Megdal do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The U.S. government is investing over US$7 billion in the coming years to try to manage the nation’s escalating wildfire crisis. That includes a commitment to treat at least 60 million acres in the next 10 years by expanding forest-thinning efforts and controlled burns.

While that sounds like a lot – 60 million acres is about the size of Wyoming – it’s nowhere close to enough to treat every acre that needs it.

So, where can taxpayers get the biggest bang for the buck?

I’m a fire ecologist in Montana. In a new study, my colleagues and I mapped out where forest treatments can do the most to simultaneously protect communities – by preventing wildfires from turning into disasters – and also protect the forests and the climate we rely on, by keeping carbon out of the atmosphere and stored in healthy soils and trees.

Wildfires are becoming more severe

Forests and fires have always been intertwined in the West. Fires in dry conifer forests like ponderosa pine historically occurred frequently, clearing out brush and small trees in the understory. As a result, fires had less fuel and tended to stay on the ground, doing less damage to the larger, older trees.

That changed after European colonization of North America ushered in a legacy of fire suppression that wouldn’t be questioned until the 1960s. In the absence of fire, dry conifer forests accumulated excess fuel that now allows wildfires to climb into the canopy.

In addition to excess fuels, all forest types are experiencing hotter and drier wildfire seasons due to climate change. And the expanding number of people living in and near forests, and their roads and power lines, increases the risk of wildfire ignitions. Collectively, it’s not surprising that more area is burning at high severity in the West.

In response, the U.S. is facing increasing pressure to protect communities from high-severity wildfire, while also reducing the country’s impact on climate change – including from carbon released by wildfires.

High-risk areas that meet both goals

To find the locations with greatest potential payoff for forest treatments, we started by identifying areas where forest carbon is more likely to be lost to wildfires compared to other locations.

In each area, we considered the likelihood of wildfire and calculated how much forest carbon might be lost through smoke emissions and decomposition. Additionally, we evaluated whether the conditions in burned areas would be too stressful for trees to regenerate over time. When forests regrow, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and lock it away in their wood, eventually making up for the carbon lost in the fire.

In particular, we found that forests in California, New Mexico and Arizona were more likely to lose a large portion of their carbon in a wildfire and also have a tough time regenerating because of stressful conditions.

When we compared those areas to previously published maps detailing high wildfire risk to communities, we found several hot spots for simultaneously reducing wildfire risk to communities and stabilizing stored carbon.

Forests surrounding Flagstaff, Arizona; Placerville, California; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Hamilton, Montana; Taos, New Mexico; Medford, Oregon, and Wenatchee, Washington, are among locations with good opportunities for likely achieving both goals.

Why treating forests is good for carbon, too

Forest thinning is like weeding a garden: It removes brush and small trees in dry conifer forests to leave behind space for the larger, older trees to continue growing.

Repeatedly applying controlled burns maintains that openness and reduces fuels in the understory. Consequently, when a wildfire occurs in a thinned and burned area, flames are more likely to remain on the ground and out of the canopy.

Although forest thinning and controlled burning remove carbon in the short term, living trees are more likely to survive a subsequent wildfire. In the long term, that’s a good outcome for carbon and climate. Living trees continue to absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere, as well as provide critical seeds and shade for seedlings to regenerate, grow and recover the carbon lost to fires.

Of course, forest thinning and controlled burning are not a silver bullet. Using the National Fire Protection Agency’s Firewise program’s advice and recommended materials will help people make their properties less vulnerable to wildfires. Allowing wildfires to burn under safe conditions can reduce future wildfire severity. And the world needs to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels to curb climate change impacts that increase the risk of wildfires becoming community disasters.

Jamie Peeler receives funding from The Nature Conservancy and United States Geological Survey. She is affiliated with The Nature Conservancy as a NatureNet Science Fellow.

In a Zen parable, a man sees a horse and rider galloping by. The man asks the rider where he’s going, and the rider responds, “I don’t know. Ask the horse!”

It is easy to feel out of control and helpless in the face of the many problems Americans are now experiencing – unaffordable health care, poverty and climate change, to name a few. These problems are made harder by the ways in which people, including elected representatives, often talk past each other.

Most people want a strong economy, social well-being and a healthy environment. These goals are interdependent: A strong economy isn’t possible without a society peaceful enough to support investment and well-functioning markets, or without water and air clean enough to support life and productivity. This understanding – that economic, social and environmental well-being are intertwined – is the premise of sustainable development.

In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals, known as the SDGs, with 169 measurable targets to be achieved by 2030. Though not legally binding, all nations, including the U.S., agreed to pursue this agenda.

The world is now halfway to that 2030 deadline. Countries have made some progress, such as reducing extreme poverty and child mortality, though the COVID-19 pandemic set back progress on many targets.

On Sept. 18-19, 2023, world leaders will gather at the U.N. to review global progress toward those goals. It’s a good opportunity for Americans to review their own progress because, as we see it, sustainable development is fundamentally American.

Environment, economy and health intertwined

Though not widely recognized, sustainable development has been a core American policy since President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act into law in 1970. The law says that Americans should “use all practicable means and measures … to create and maintain conditions under which man [sic] and nature can exist in productive harmony and fulfill the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations of Americans.”

While it is tempting in today’s sour political climate to dismiss this as wishful thinking, the U.S. has made some progress reconciling economic development with environmental protection.

Gross domestic product, for example, grew 196% between 1980 and 2022, while total emissions of the six most common non-greenhouse air pollutants, including lead and sulfur dioxide, fell 73%, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, a major sustainable development law, is designed to further accelerate the use of renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through tax credits and other incentives. Goldman Sachs estimated the law would spur about US$3 trillion in renewable energy investment. The law has already been credited with creating 170,000 new jobs and leading to more than 270 new or expanded clean energy projects. That impact further demonstrates that environmental goals can align with economic growth.

The 2015 Sustainable Development Goals cover a broader range of environmental, social and economic issues, and there are indicators for assessing progress on each.

How is America doing?

The U.S. ranked 39th out of 166 countries in a 2023 review of national efforts to implement the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which operates under the auspices of the U.N. Secretary-General, finds that America is lagging behind the targets set for many of the Sustainable Development Goals that are critical to the nation’s defense, competitiveness and health, such as reducing obesity, increasing life expectancy at birth, protecting labor rights, reducing maternal mortality, decreasing inequality and protecting biodiversity.

To understand where the U.S. is falling short, we asked 26 experts working on various areas of sustainable development to review the nation’s progress and make recommendations for future action. The resulting 2023 book, Governing for Sustainability, provides some 500 U.S.-specific recommendations for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Health and access to quality health care loom large in many of the goals. The authors in several chapters explain why the nation cannot eliminate poverty or hunger, or have a vibrant economy, gender equality or education gains, without widely available, affordable health care. Yet, the U.S. has some of the highest health care costs in the world. Several states have rejected efforts to expand eligibility for federal Medicaid health insurance for low-income residents, leaving many people without care.

Similarly, the authors show that human health, ecological health, clean water and economic vitality all require sound climate policy. A quickly warming world poses new health risks, decimates ecosystems, strains potable water supplies and reduces global economic productivity.

Clean and abundant water is critical to a functioning economy and a stable, diverse ecosystem, and yet some areas of the United States still lack clean water or indoor plumbing. This often occurs in communities of color and low income, and it can impede economic prosperity and development in these areas.

Ready access to nutritious food is also a bedrock need to support many of the Sustainable Development Goals, from poverty alleviation to education, yet far too many American children rely on school lunches for basic sustenance.

The goals covering peace, justice, strong institutions and partnerships are necessary to achieve all of the goals. A society at war with itself and without rule of law cannot support a vibrant, diverse economy and lasting democracy. This has been shown repeatedly as some developing nations backslide from democratic progress and prosperity to civil war and poverty. Developed nations are subject to the same forces.

Taking the reins

Sustainable development is emphatically not about government alone solving the nation’s problems. Businesses, universities and other organizations, as well as individuals, are essential to help the country realize its environmental, health and climate goals, fair practices and living wages.

The right place to “take the reins” is where you are, and with the problems or tasks in front of you – at work and at home. Figure out more sustainable ways to use water and energy, for example. Look at what our book recommends and what others are already doing to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. Seize opportunities such as saving money, and reduce risks by, for example, cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Every individual can contribute to a better future.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.