Looking Toward the Past and Future for Sustainable Solutions to Mexico City’s Water Crisis
By Laurent Frapaise
The current COVID-19 epidemic has spotlighted the important relationship between human health and environmental protection. It is also increasingly apparent that the pollution of our environment through current economic systems plague the world’s most vulnerable socio-economic communities, and this is no-less true in Mexico City. The rapid growth and development of industry in Mexico City far outpaced its consequences on the natural environment and poorer socio-economic communities, especially in the context of supplying clean water to its residents. Urban planners in Mexico City would be best served integrating certain water management mechanisms used in the age of Tenochtitlan, and adapt the city to its environment, rather than to a colonial, European ideal of what the city should be.
To understand Mexico City’s current water struggles, we must first refer back to the origins of the country’s capital, to a time where the land on which it sits was once called Tenochtitlan, a city later colonised by Spanish conquistadors. Tenochtitlan was built in and around an inter-connected lake system, which served to provide water and protection to the Aztec empire. The city integrated large water bodies and canals throughout its complex network, and developed a sophisticated levee and dam system that would control flooding and maintain the quality of their drinking water sources, as well as a vast aqueduct system that would provide the city potable water from distant lakes.Once the Spanish planners conquered Tenochtitlan, they sought to expand the city by draining its natural lakes and canals, thus igniting Mexico City’s water management and quality crisis. Without natural lakes, Mexico City’s yearly average of 733 milometers of rainfall has nowhere but the city’s streets to collect, which leads to cyclic flooding and water pollution as the floods carrying waste from the city retreat back into the lakes and ground water.
In addition to the lack of safe drinking water and its impact on social and economic inequality, there are significant issues with the city’s water management and distribution systems. Main criticisms are:
(1) its governing body, the Comision Nacional del Agua, is too centralised and fails to uphold the laws of the General Water Laws,
(2) the emissions from automobile, agricultural and industrial activity pollute the air and water, and
(3) the out-dated infrastructure leaks water in the distribution network, and fails to address flooding.
The following solutions will address each of these three points in an effort to treat Mexico’s water crisis as a multi-disciplinary issue.
Recommendation I: Nature-Based Climate Adaptation Solutions
Mexico City should prioritize nature-based solutions to its costly, cyclic floods that cost the city over USD 230 million every year. Flooding not only places people at immediate risk during the height of floods, but also further contributes to water pollution as floods carry with them all of the city’s pollution to soils and surface water, contaminating the groundwater resources from which Mexico City sources 50% of its water consumption. One way in which this issue could be addressed is through the implementation of mass-green infrastructure projects that focus on capturing rain. A combination of green infrastructure, such as blue roofs, permeable pavements, and bioswales (native plants with high water-absorption potential) would significantly reduce the incidence of flooding. It would be particularly useful to refer to old records of indigenous plants in the Mexico City region, and adopt similar water management strategies as the Aztec civilization during the era of Tenochtitlan. Using vegetation as a water management tool can also serve as an efficient cooling mechanism for a city, as vegetation prevents the formation of heat islands. Though these infrastructure projects can be more costly than the issue of flooding in the immediate, short-term, the long-term benefits, even with a relatively high discount rate of (3-4%) far out-weigh the costs over several years in large, metropolitan cities.
Recommendation II: Improved Water Governance
One of the main criticisms that clean water advocates have on the history of addressing these issues is that the solutions have prioritized a technological approach over a socio-economic or community-level approach. The centralized nature of the Comision Nacional del Agua has been criticized for discouraging engagement from the public in managing water resources, as well as for stymieing a wider integrated water-management approach. The Ley General de Aguas (General Water Laws) have been called upon for strengthening in terms of distribution of powers and accountability by clarifying the divided responsibilities of water management among federal, state and communal powers, as well as introducing components of equity to address the needs of vulnerable populations that lack access. These vulnerable populations also heavily rely on non-conventional water resources, such as water trucks and well water, which are often more costly than water from the public distribution network. Examples of community-level water management in Mexico, such as in San Felipe del Progreso, serve as a prime example of how community-level knowledge of water resources and the existing partnerships between varying actors may lead to improved water management.
Poverty and Water Source by District
Recommendation III: Alleviate Agricultural and Industrial Impact on Water Resources
Industrial and agricultural production are at the forefront of the wider system of production and exploitation of natural resources. Over 70% of available, fresh water is dedicated to agricultural production, which creates a two-fold issue: it limits the available quantity of potable water for private consumption, and, once used, it is often polluted and re-introduced into natural ecosystems. Mexico City’s main agricultural regions, Milpa Alta, Xochimilco and Tlahuac, are also its poorest, which raises the concern that vulnerable populations requiring water for sanitation and for independent businesses may not have as much access to water compared to non-agricultural districts. Additionally, industrial activity that uses water as a cooling medium also limits available water and expels it in the form of highly polluted waste water. Therefore, both the agricultural and industrial production must implement water management strategies that simultaneously consume less water, and filter out the pollutants that they introduce into their water consumption. These measures would also likely reduce the toxicity of acid rain, which pollutes surface and ground water resources for the entire city.
Concluding Thoughts
Mexico City’s water crisis is, at its core, an environmental justice issue, and is not borne out of scarcity of the resource itself. Through a combination of robust policies that integrate the natural geography of the region, as well as a systems-based approach that embraces water management within the region’s wider agricultural, industrial and urbanisation practices, Mexico City would be better positioned to not only resolve its water crisis, but also mitigate the impacts of climate change for the next several decades.
Laurent Frapaise is a rising second-year MALD student studying international environment and resource policy, and recently completed a summer internship with the NRDC working on sustainable water management techniques. Special acknowledgements to the NRDC for supervising the research for this piece.