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Originally Posted by Raellus
There's enough ground water here in the Tucson area to supply the existing population with potable drinking water. Area farms, however, rely heavily on water from the Coloradon River transported via the CAP canal.
After the nuclear exchange, regional "water wars" between states and municipalities could transpire (the SW states are fighting over it now, IRL). This could cut the Tucson area's access to that crucial CO River water and more or less render large scale agriculture impossible.
Climate-wise, it's quite lovely here for 7 months of the year. Mid-May through mid-October, however, is unbearably hot. It's no surprise that the population of Arizona didn't really grow until the advent of air conditioning.
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The whole southern United States is unpleasant without air conditioner for long stretches of the year. Summer was about as bad as we've ever had it this year in Texas, at least as long as I've been alive. My Texas joke is we have two seasons in Texas, summer and almost summer.
One thing about AZ is the population has close to doubled since 1995 (and California has increased by ~8 million), so one bright side is in 2000, you'd have 23 fewer years of population growth, reservoir and ground water depletion to contend with. In addition, AZ grows enough food to be self-sufficient in calorie terms. That being said, it looks to me like the water feeding the Phoenix area agriculture comes from Lake Havasu by way of the Colorado River and Yuma...and while Phoenix nor Tucson might fall to the Mexican invasion, Yuma absolutely would, and from there Mexico could cut off much of the water needed for agriculture and starve out much of the American population of Arizona.