Water Episodes

Extreme drought and catastrophic flooding can seem like opposites, yet both are becoming defining features of the modern Southwest. This episode examines recent events in Death Valley and the Great Salt Lake, exploring what they reveal about climate change, water management, and the future of desert landscapes.

Summer monsoons shape life across the deserts of the Southwest, bringing relief from extreme heat and sustaining plants and wildlife. This episode explores how the North American Monsoon works, why it varies from year to year, and what scientists are learning about its future in a changing climate.

For generations, the American West has relied on the assumption that water could always be found somewhere. That era is ending. This episode examines drought, the Colorado River, and the changing realities of water management across the Southwest, asking what the future of desert communities will look like as water becomes increasingly scarce.

The Dixie Valley toad lives in just one warm spring in Nevada, making it one of North America's rarest amphibians. This episode explores the conservation fight to protect the species from geothermal development and examines how a tiny desert toad became the center of a much larger debate about renewable energy and biodiversity.