In our high desert, water is the most limiting resource. Most species have adapted by becoming remarkably efficient in their use of water. Some grow only when it rains while others persist in places where there is just enough moisture to survive. In arid landscapes like ours, springs are vital refuges, living systems shaped by geology, climate, and the many species that depend on them. A spring you visit today may look and function very differently in the future. That dynamism is part of their beauty, but it also makes them vulnerable.

Across northern Arizona and the southern Colorado Plateau, springs are facing rapid declines in flow. Nearly half of these springs now only flow part time. Arizona has more than 11,000 known springs. Few of these are monitored, and the available data show t

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