Mexico City will run out of water in 2028, UAM academics warn

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Researchers from the Autonomous University of Mexico (UAM) warn that by 2028, access and distribution of drinking water in Mexico City will be unsustainable for the Government. Day Zero for this resource in the country's capital is near.

Roberto Constantino Toto, general coordinator of AgUAM (water research net Phone Number List work of the UAM), assured in a press conference that it is urgent to reformulate the dam filling and wastewater management systems . If these measures are not taken, "the estimate places Day Zero for the capital in 2028, some others place it in 2050, but whatever the estimate is it is very worrying," said the specialist.

Mexico temperatures
Mexico registers the highest temperatures in Latin America
Every decade the countries of the region register an increase in temperature of 0.2°C. In the case of Mexico the figure stood at 0.3°C between 1991 and 2022.
The UAM's projections coincide with those of the United Nations (UN), which suggest that in five years Mexico City would lose the capacity to supply and guarantee access to liquid.

The increase in consumption, the lack of maintenance of the infrastructure and a decrease in the collection of rainwater are behind the trend. During the pandemic, for example, water consumption grew in the city by 30%, while a loss of 40% was recorded due to leaks due to poor maintenance of the network.

Constantino Toto assured that in the last 450 years the way of managing water in Mexico City has not changed. The lack of flexibility in public policies in the face of increasing population density in the last 50 years aggravated the crisis.

The capital and all of Mexico dry up
Delia Montero Contreras, professor of Economics and founder of AgUAM, highlights that, currently, about 43% of the population in the city lacks access to drinking water, and they are forced to obtain it in unorthodox and unhealthy ways.

The specialist affirms that the problem is not only in the scarcity of water , but also in the precarious regulation of commercial options to access the common good. “Our country ranks first in the world in consumption of bottled water per inhabitant,” says the professor, and assures that the lack of a solid framework around marketing does not guarantee the quality of the water consumed by Mexicans. “Maybe the water that comes out of your tap is of better quality than what you buy,” she emphasized.



Added to the scenario is the lack of culture in water care, neglected leaks, poorly accessible reuse alternatives and an evident decrease in rainwater collection. Academics from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) at the conference 'The phenomenon of El Niño and its impacts in Mexico' concluded that the country has between 92% and 93% less rain compared to its historical maximums.

Until 2019, figures from the World Resources Institute (WRI) indicated that the country had a high level of water stress, ranking as the second nation with the highest levels in this area within Latin America. Worldwide, Mexico ranked 24th.

In Mexican territory there are five regions where a greater amount of water is used than can be captured and distributed through the natural cycle: the Northwest (Sonora-Sinaloa), Río Bravo (Monterrey), Lerma-Santiago-Pacífico (Jalisco). ), that of the Valley of Mexico and the Balsas Region (center of the country and Mexico City).