Overview

• A 2025 Arizona State University study finds the basin has lost about 12 trillion gallons of groundwater since 2002—enough to fill Lake Mead—and that depletion rates have tripled in the last ten years.
• Agriculture drives up to 80% of Basin water withdrawals, with large-scale irrigation of alfalfa and other thirsty crops accounting for most unprotected pumping.
• Climate warming and more frequent droughts are shrinking surface flows, intensifying reliance on aquifers that cannot be replenished at current withdrawal rates.
• Arizona established a new groundwater management area in the Willcox Basin despite farmer protests, underscoring growing efforts to regulate pumping in a region where most aquifers remain unprotected.
• Rapid aquifer declines are causing land subsidence, drying wells and opening fissures, putting water access at risk for 40 million people as cooling demands from data centers rise.