by Alejandro Gomez has been without proper running water for more than three months. Sometimes it comes on for an hour or two, but only a small trickle, barely enough to fill a few buckets. Then nothing for many days.
Gomez, who lives in the Tlalpan district of Mexico City, doesn’t have a large storage tank, so he can’t get truck deliveries of water — it’s just a place to store it. Instead, he and his family put out what they can buy and store.
When they wash themselves, they take the runoff to flush the toilet. It’s difficult, he told CNN. “We need water, it’s essential for everything.”
Water shortages are not uncommon in this neighborhood, but this time feels different, Gomez said. “Right now, we’re having this hot weather. It’s even worse, things are more complicated.”
Mexico City, a sprawling metropolis of nearly 22 million people and one of the largest cities in the world, is facing a serious water crisis as the impacts of climate change exacerbate problems — including geography, chaotic development urban and leaking infrastructure.
Years of extremely low rainfall, longer dry spells and high temperatures have put additional stress on an already strained water system to cope with increased demand. The authorities were forced to introduce significant restrictions on water pumped from reservoirs.
“Some neighborhoods have lacked water for weeks, and there are still four months left until the rains start,” said Christian Domínguez Sarmiento, an atmospheric scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
Politicians are downplaying any sense of crisis, but some experts say the situation has now reached such critical levels that Mexico City could be barreling towards “day zero” in a few months – when the taps run dry for parts huge of the city.
Historical advantages
Densely populated Mexico City stretches out over a high-altitude lake bed, about 7,300 feet above sea level. It was built on clay-rich soil – in which it is now sinking – and is prone to earthquakes and very vulnerable to climate change. It might be one of the last places anyone would choose to build a megacity today.
The Aztecs chose this spot to build their city of Tenochtitlan in 1325, when it was a series of lakes. They built on an island, expanding the city out, building networks of canals and bridges to work with the water.
But when the Spanish arrived in the early 16th century, they destroyed much of the city, drained the lake bed, filled canals and destroyed forests. They saw “water as an enemy to overcome for the success of the city,” said Jose Alfredo Ramirez, an architect and co-director of Groundlab, a design and policy research organization.
Their decision paved the way for many of Mexico City’s modern problems. Wetlands and rivers have been replaced with concrete and asphalt. In the rainy season, there are floods. In the dry season, it is parched.
About 60% of Mexico City’s water comes from its underground aquifer, but this is so abstracted that the city is sinking at an alarming rate – about 20 inches a year, according to recent research. And the aquifer is not being refilled anywhere near fast enough. The rainwater rolls off the hard impervious surfaces of the city, rather than sinking into the ground.
The rest of the city’s water is pumped great distances uphill from sources outside the city, in a highly inefficient process, where around 40% of the water is lost through leakage.
The Cutzamala water system, a network of reservoirs, pumping stations, canals and tunnels, provides about 25% of the water used by the Valley of Mexico, including Mexico City. But a severe drought has affected it. Currently, at about 39% of capacity, it is languishing at a historic low.
“It’s almost half the amount of water we should have,” said Fabiola Sosa-Rodríguez, head of economic and environmental growth at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City.
In October, Conagua, the country’s national water commission, announced that it would restrict water from Cutzamala by 8% “to ensure the supply of drinking water to the population in light of the severe drought.”
A few weeks later, officials ramped up restrictions, reducing the water supplied by the system by nearly 25%, which they blamed on extreme weather conditions.
“Measures must be taken to distribute the water that Cutzamala has over time, to ensure that it does not run out,” Germán Arturo Martínez Santoyo, director general of Conagua, said in a statement at the time.
About 60% of Mexico is experiencing moderate to exceptional drought, according to a report in February. Almost 90% of Mexico City is in severe drought – and it’s only going to get worse with the start of the rainy season still months away.
“We are about the middle of the dry season and we expect continued temperature increases until April or May,” said June Garcia-Becerra, an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Northern British Columbia.
This part of Mexico is greatly affected by natural climate variability. Three years of La Niña brought drought to the region, and then the arrival of El Niño last year helped deliver a very short rainy season that failed to replenish reservoirs.
But the long-term trend of human-caused global warming is humming in the background, pushing for longer droughts and more intense heat waves, as well as heavier rains when they do come.
“Droughts are becoming more severe because of the lack of water due to climate change,” said UNAM’s Sarmiento. In addition, high temperatures “have evaporated the available water in the Cutzamala system,” she said.
Last summer a brutal heat wave hit large parts of the country, claiming at least 200 lives. These heat waves would be “almost impossible” without climate change, according to an analysis by scientists.
Climate impacts have compounded the growing pains of a rapidly expanding city. As the population grows, experts say the centralized water system has not kept pace.
‘Day zero?’
The crisis has sparked a fierce debate about whether the city will reach “day zero,” when the Cutzamala system drops so low that it will be unable to provide any water to the city’s residents.
Local media widely reported in early February that an official from a branch of Conagua said “day zero” could come as early as June 26 without significant rain.
But authorities have since tried to reassure residents that there will be no day zero. I press conference on February 14, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that work was underway to address the water problems. The mayor of Mexico City, Martí Batres Guadarrama, said recently press conference that zero-day reports were “fake news” by political opponents.
Conagua declined CNN’s interview requests and did not answer specific questions about the day zero prospect.
But many experts warn of a spiraling crisis. Mexico City could run out of water before the rainy season arrives if it continues to use it in the same way, Sosa-Rodríguez said. “We’re probably going to have day zero,” she said.
This does not mean that the water system will collapse completely, she said, because the city is not dependent on one source. It will not be the same when Cape Town in South Africa became dangerous in 2018 after a severe multi-year drought. “Some groups will still have water,” she said, “but most people won’t.”
Raúl Rodríguez Márquez, president of the non-profit Water Advisory Council, said he does not believe the city will reach day zero this year – but, he warned, if changes are not made.
“We are in a critical situation, and we could reach a very big situation in the coming months,” he told CNN.
‘I don’t think anyone is ready’
For nearly a decade, Sosa-Rodríguez said she has been warning officials about the threat of a zero-day for Mexico City.
She said the solutions are clear: Better wastewater treatment would increase water availability and reduce pollution, and rainwater collection systems could capture and treat rain, allowing residents to reduce their dependence on the water network or reduce water trucks by 30%.
Fixing leaks would make the system much more efficient and reduce the volume of water that has to be removed from the aquifer. And nature-based solutions, such as restoring rivers and wetlands, would help provide and purify water, she said, with the added benefit of greening and cooling the city.
In a statement on its website, Conagua said it is undertaking a 3-year project to install, develop and improve water infrastructure to help the city cope with reductions in the Cutzamala system, including adding new wells and commissioning water treatment plants.
But in the meantime, tensions are rising as some residents are forced to cope with shortages, while others – often in the wealthiest areas – remain largely unaffected.
“It is clear that there is unequal access to water in the city and this is related to people’s income,” said Sosa-Rodríguez. While day zero may not be here yet for all of Mexico City, some neighborhoods have been grappling with it for years, she said.
Amanda Martínez, another resident of the city’s Tlalpan district, told people here that water shortages are nothing new. She and her family often have to pay more than $100 for a tank of water from one of the city’s water trucks. But it is getting worse. Sometimes she can go more than two weeks without water and she’s afraid of what’s to come, she told CNN.
“I don’t think anyone is prepared.”
CNN’s Laura Paddison and Jack Guy reported from London, and Fidel Gutiérrez reported from Mexico City.
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