GREEN

End of Phoenix expansion: no more new construction, no groundwater

Arizona has decided to place limits on new construction, particularly in the Phoenix metropolitan area, the state's most important city and in fact the fastest growing area in the United States in terms of construction, even though its territory is largely occupied by natural parks, monuments, desert and Indian reserves.

The reason for this stop is the shortage of underground water reserves, which would therefore prevent new buildings from being able to receive drinking water. Consequently, Arizona has decided that since there is not enough groundwater, it will no longer give permits for new construction, a sign of problems due to wasted water, drought and climate change.

Announcing this difficult decision, which marks a temporary end to the city's expansion, was Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs. Thus, in effect, the state will no longer be able to grant developers new permits to build houses in some outlying areas of Maricopa County that depend on groundwater wells.

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Arizona's underground water shortage: no more concessions in Phoenix area
Arizona has decided to place limits on new construction, particularly in the Phoenix metropolitan area, the most important city in the state, and in fact the fastest growing area in the United States in terms of construction, even though its territory is largely occupied by natural parks, monuments, wilderness and Indian reserves.
Getty Images
Arizona's underground water shortage: no more concessions in Phoenix area
The reason for this stop is the shortage of underground water reserves, which would therefore prevent new constructions from being able to receive drinking water. Consequently, Arizona has decided that since there is not enough groundwater, it will no longer give permits for new construction, a sign of problems due to wasted water, drought and climate change.
Getty Images
Arizona's underground water shortage: no more concessions in Phoenix area
Announcing this difficult decision, which marks a temporary end to the city's expansion, was Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs. Thus, in effect, the state will no longer be able to grant developers new permits to build houses in certain outlying areas of Maricopa County that depend on groundwater wells.
Getty Images
Arizona's underground water shortage: no more concessions in Phoenix area
Arizona was the 48th state to be admitted to the US federation, and the last continental one since, after that, it was the turn of only Alaska and Hawaii. It is also the sixth largest US state (area of 295,254 km²) and the 16th most populous of the fifty states (7,171,646 in the 2018 census).
Getty Images
Arizona's underground water shortage: no more concessions in Phoenix area
The problem is that the state capital, Phoenix, located in the south, receives about 90-100 mm of rain every year (let us consider for a moment that the international threshold for desert is 250 mm per year) distributed irregularly (this is because it depends on the magnitude of the disturbance fronts coming from the west) from September to July (sometimes it may never rain at all for all these months).
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