The Roosevelt Dam in Arizona is kind of like Warragamba Dam in Sydney. It is one of the oldest dams in Arizona supplying water to the metropolitan area. It is currently celebrating its century of service to the Sonoran Plain.

The photo above is of one of the dams in Arizona, not sure if it is Roosevelt or not, during maintenance when the water level was low. Phoenix has a river which flows through it. The river isn't strong and like outback rivers tends to flow when there is rains or monsoons. The reality though is that the Sonaron Plain is a dry place and Phoenix survives by daming and importing water from outside the state.

Conservation is the cheapest and most direct way to stretch water resources, but it would require fundamental changes in the way people use water. "When you talk about conservation, people think about shorter showers or maybe reclaiming effluent," Gammage said.

To make a real dent in water use, Phoenix would need to change the entire landscape - the actual landscape, Gammage said. "If you quit watering landscape at the rate we do, just drop the per capita water use in Phoenix to what they use in Tucson. That's about a 40 percent increase in water supply right there."

There are a surprising lot of lawns in Phoenix. Some areas get flooded with reclaimed water. They have yards that are like basins and every two weeks or so they get flooded. They are very green blocks. Nearly all the new developments xeriscape and have native plants and drought tolerant arrangements. The heat of summer here can burn and stress plants to the point where they die quickly.

In our case there was a small amount of bermuda grass out the back. That has been replaced with rock and cactus landscaping. All the high maintenance plants that are in the yard have been ripped out and replaced with sagauros, golden barrels, pale verdes, mexican fence posts and fishhooks.

More Reading on Phoenix

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• Rain over the McDowell Ranges
• Camelback at Sunset
• Phoenix Botanical Gardens
• Desert Botanical Garden Sculpture
• Squaw Peak
• Old Town Scottsdale
• Golf Courses, Parks and Water
• Hiking the McDowell Ranges