Cities In Peril: Las Vegas

The Survival of Las Vegas

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View of Las Vegas from the air
Source: Wikipedia

It's hard to think about Las Vegas without images of stereotypical excess: gambling, bachelor(ette) parties, luxurious hotels, swimming pools, golf in the desert, posh fountains, celebrities, major music and entertainment acts, and famous restaurateurs. On the one hand, it may seem incongruous that Las Vegas and the surrounding Clark County, which receive only 4 inches of rain per year on average and lie within one of the driest regions on Earth (Figure 5) (as discussed in Module 1), are also home to one of the fastest growing populations in the U.S. (Figure 6; See also the interactive link in the caption below). On the other hand, it may be surprising that Las Vegas is among the most water-conscious cities in the nation, and as discussed below, despite rapid economic and population growth over the past two to three decades the city has managed to live within the limits of its relatively meager allocation of water from the Colorado River, the main water source for the region (see Colorado River Compact).

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Figure 5. Major rivers in the US, with widths scaled by average water discharge. Note that the American Southwest, and Nevada and Arizona in particular, have no major surface water flows other than the Colorado River.
Source: Map from the Pacific Institute, prepared by Matthew Heberger, 2013. Creative Commons License.

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Figure 6. Population of Clark County, Nevada from 1970 to present, showing Centre County, PA over the same time period for comparison.
Source: Figure constructed using Google's public data analysis site

• A Familiar History of Water and Population Growth:
• Formative Assessment 1: Sustaining Las Vegas
• Current Water Use and Sources:
• Dealing With Water Scarcity: A Diversified Portfolio:
• Formative Assessment 2: Lake Mead and Las Vegas
• Conservation
• New Sources: Tapping Groundwater:
• Formative Assessment 3: Water Rights
• Water Banking
• The Third Straw