Water Risk Hotspots for Agriculture: The Case of the Southwest United States

The Southwest United States – defined here as Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah – is a rapidly growing region that faces major water challenges. It has the fastest growing population and one of the most economically productive regions of the United States. It is also the most arid region and is prone to long-term droughts. These dry conditions, combined with a water allocation system based on prior appropriation — whereby the “first in time” is the “first in line” to access water — generate tension between stable or declining sectors of the economy that hold the majority of the rights to water and the fast-growing sectors of the economy that have more limited water rights. The Southwest provides a case study of the challenges posed by limited water availability and some of the successful methods used to bridge the gap between water supply and demand.