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Arizona Tri-University Recharge (ATUR) Project Report

Three top Arizona universities report on findings of three-year project on “Recharge and Water Supply Reliability” in Arizona

Published
June 25, 2026

Arizona Tri-University Recharge (ATUR) Project Report

 

 

Keen observers may now be seeing a pattern.

Earlier this month, Arizona water leaders, including ADWR Director Tom Buschatzke, joined representatives from California and Nevada to sign an agreement to explore the first-ever interstate water exchanges to occur in the Colorado River Basin. 

A month earlier, in early May, the three Lower Basin States of Arizona, California and Nevada proposed saving at least 3.2 million acre-feet in the river system over the next two years while providing proactive protection to the system through creation of an additional 700 thousand acre-feet of conservation.

Observers may reasonably conclude from these proposals that Arizona and its Lower Basin partners are committed to marshalling, conserving and even enhancing the region’s water supplies. 

But hold on. As they say on the shopping networks, But wait, there’s more!

Arizona’s top three public universities - the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and Northern Arizona University - have released a three-year project they call the Arizona Tri-University Recharge (ATUR) Project Report, which has focused on identifying new water sources across the state that are currently lost to evaporation and capturing water generated through urban development. A top goal of the project is enhancing groundwater recharge and water supply reliability within current water management rules.

The report was prepared at ADWR’s request and was funded by the Arizona Board of Regents.  

Beginning in January 2023, 15 faculty members across the three universities, as well as over 25 students and post-docs, worked together on the highly collaborative research.  

According to Kathy Jacobs, a professor at the U of A and the principal investigator of the ATUR project, This project has built a solid scientific foundation for maximizing water supplies that are currently lost to the atmosphere, in order to support communities and natural habitats across the state.

When the ATUR project was released on June 17, ADWR released the following statement: 

(ADWR) appreciates the many faculty and staff whose dedication and effort have driven the success of the Arizona Tri-University Recharge Project over the past three years, as well as to the Arizona Board of Regents for its support and funding of this significant work. As prolonged drought conditions shape a hotter, drier future, ADWR is pleased to leverage the expertise of Arizona's three major universities through initiatives like the ATUR project to identify practical, science driven solutions to Arizona's increasingly complex water management challenges.

Among the project’s most important findings:

  • On average, more than 95 percent of the precipitation that falls in the state is lost through evaporation and/or transpiration by plants.  Reducing these losses by even small percentages could yield significant increases in supply.
  • Arizona is experiencing an overall reduction in total water storage statewide, which is highly correlated with hotter and drier weather.
  • The area of the state with the highest potential for generating large volumes of water for capture and storage is the Mogollon Rim/Transition Zone, because of its significantly higher precipitation volumes relative to evapotranspiration.
  • Incorporation of recharge objectives as a co-benefit in land management efforts and infrastructure design, particularly land development, management of flood flows, forest thinning, and fire management, can substantially contribute to water reliability in some areas.