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Two high-profile water crises, juiced up by climate change and industrial overuse, are building in the US. From a city in Texas staring down a drought emergency to a decades-long political crisis coming to a head for the states that rely on the Colorado River, water issues in the West will take center stage this summer—and experts tell WIRED that other places should take notes and start planning ahead for their own future.

In February, following a winter of record-breaking heat, snowpack in various mountain ranges across the American West reached record lows. March came in even hotter, smashing records in states across the region.

On Tuesday, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) announced he has opened an investigation into the Trump administration’s latest scheme to steal water from Northern California and divert it to Southern California.

As part of his investigation, he sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum demanding records and information about their efforts to facilitate a Southern California water district’s takeover of dams and water rights on the Eel River, hundreds of miles outside its service area. He sent a similar letter to the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District.

California’s largest agricultural water district wants to turn a growing water crisis into an economic pivot.

The Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan aims to repurpose tens of thousands of acres of water‑starved farmland in California’s San Joaquin Valley into a massive solar‑and‑battery network, producing power for the state’s grid, lowering energy costs for farmers, and creating a new economic lifeline as groundwater rules force fields to fallow.

Federal water managers are putting the nation’s largest dam in a precarious position as they try to balance out the Colorado River system in a year of record low snowpack.

Toward the bottom of the Bureau of Reclamation’s marquee announcement last week was a paragraph that said lower flows out of Lake Powell could reduce Hoover Dam’s hydroelectric power generation by about 40 percent as soon as this fall. According to projections, Lake Mead could fall nearly 30 feet in the next two years, more than 8 feet past the 2022 record low.

Scottsdale could lose as much as 80% of its Colorado River water supply in the coming years, according to an expert who spoke at a community water forum Monday night — a warning that left many residents concerned about the city’s long‑term water security.

Roughly 70% of Scottsdale’s municipal tap water comes from the Colorado River, a source that has been under increasing strain from drought, population growth, and shrinking reservoirs. That dependence, experts said, makes the city especially vulnerable.