Water scarcity in Mexico
Open-knowledge reference entry
The extent of water scarcity in Mexico is so serious that the government released an advertising campaign titled "February 2010: The City May Run Out of Water".
Mexico City's hydrological paradox is that it gets more than enough rain to, in theory, keep the 21 million people who live in and around it adequately supplied with water. Its average annual precipitation is about twice that of Los Angeles, and even exceeds that of famously damp London. But most of the rainfall (or hail) comes during the summer, and often during just a few epic storms. So when it is wet, it is much too wet, and the city has built a massive infrastructure over the past five centuries to get the water out quickly. To keep hydrated during the drier months, Mexico City imports water from other regions, but mainly just pumps from underground, which causes land subsidence, which makes flooding worse.
In 2024, a lack of rain severely depleted the Cutzamala water system reservoirs, which provide 20 percent of the capital city's water. The drought forced the city to use more water from underground aquifers, which is not ideal as it is not sustainable and also causes the city to physically sink. On top of climate change, infrastructure also contributes to water loss. Mexico City's leaky water pipes are estimate to lose almost 40% of the water between the treatment plant and the household tap.
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This entry incorporates text from “Water scarcity in Mexico” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.