Arizona and other inland arid regions face mounting water-supply constraints as climate change, groundwater depletion, population growth, and Colorado River uncertainty reduce the reliability of traditional supplies. This paper compares two contrasting water-augmentation pathways for Arizona that span opposite ends of the infrastructure spectrum: Sea of Cortez desalination with long-distance conveyance, a mature centralized technology, and atmospheric water harvesting (AWH), an emerging distributed approach that captures water vapor from air near the point-of-use. Arizona provides a demanding test case because its inland location, distance from the coast, and limited brine-disposal options challenge both strategies. Sea of Cortez desalination is a long-term augmentation option requiring major infrastructure, binational governance, permitting, financing, and decades of implementation. In contrast, AWH is deployable for targeted applications but remains constrained by early readiness levels, high energy demand, limited production capacity, and uncertain life-cycle costs. Under screening assumptions, Sea of Cortez desalination and conveyance require 5.56 kWh/m³ with a lower-bound levelized cost of water of $2.0–$4.4/m³, whereas sorption-based AWH requires 116–1200 kWh/m³ but no conveyance or complex management costs. These contrasting pathways illustrate technology-readiness, economic, environmental, and governance trade-offs while broadening the concept of water importation to include the atmosphere as a natural conveyance pathway for harvesting water vapor near demand.
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