Alejandro Gomez has been without proper running water for more than three months. Sometimes it burns for an hour or two, but only a small trickle, enough to fill a few buckets. Then nothing happened for days.
Gomez, who lives in Mexico City’s Tlalpan district, doesn’t have a large storage tank, so he can’t receive water truck deliveries; there is nowhere to store it. Instead, he and his family pull out what they can buy and store.
As they wash themselves, they catch the discharge to flush the toilet. He told CNN it was difficult. “We need water, it is necessary for everything.”
Gomez said water shortages aren’t uncommon in this neighborhood, but this time feels different. “We’re having this hot weather right now. To make matters worse, things are even more complicated.”
Mexico City, a vast metropolis of approximately 22 million people and one of the largest cities in the world, faces a serious water crisis due to a range of issues including geography, chaotic urban development and leaky infrastructure, combined with the effects of climate change.
Years of abnormally low rainfall, longer dry spells and high temperatures have added stress to a water system that was already struggling to meet rising demand. Authorities had to impose significant restrictions on water pumped from reservoirs.
“Many neighborhoods have been suffering from water shortages for weeks, and we are still four months away from the start of the rains,” said Christian Domínguez Sarmiento, an atmospheric scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
While politicians downplay any sense of crisis, some experts say the situation has now reached such critical levels that Mexico City could be approaching “day zero” within a few months, when much of the city’s taps run dry.
historic lows
Densely populated Mexico City lies along a high-altitude lake bed, approximately 7,300 feet above sea level. Built on clay-rich soil and now sinking, the area is susceptible to earthquakes and highly vulnerable to climate change. This is perhaps one of the last places anyone would choose to build a megacity today.
The Aztecs chose this area to build their city of Tenochtitlan, which consists of a series of lakes, in 1325. They built on an island, expanded the city outwards, and built a network of canals and bridges to handle water.
But when the Spanish arrived in the early 16th century, they destroyed much of the city, drained the lake bed, filled the canals, and destroyed the forests. “They saw water as an enemy that had to be overcome for the city to thrive,” said Jose Alfredo Ramirez, an architect and co-director of Groundlab, a design and policy research organization.
Their decisions paved the way for many of Mexico City’s modern problems. Concrete and asphalt replaced wetlands and rivers. It is flooded during the rainy season. In the dry season, it is roasted.
About 60% of Mexico City’s water comes from the underground aquifer, but this is so over-extracted that the city is sinking at an alarming rate (about 20 inches per year), according to recent studies. And the aquifer isn’t replenishing fast enough. Instead of sinking into the ground, rainwater runs off the city’s hard, impermeable surfaces.
The rest of the city’s water is pumped up vast distances from sources outside the city, in an incredibly inefficient process; Meanwhile, approximately 40% of water is lost due to leaks.
The Cutzamala water system, which consists of reservoirs, pump stations, canals and tunnels, provides approximately 25% of the water used by the Mexican Valley, which includes Mexico City. But severe drought took its toll. It is currently languishing at around 39% capacity, its lowest level in history.
“This is almost half the amount of water we should have,” said Fabiola Sosa-Rodríguez, head of economic growth and environment at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City.
In October, Conagua, the country’s national water commission, announced it would restrict water from Cutzamala by 8% “to ensure the supply of drinking water to the population in view of the severe drought.”
Just a few weeks later, authorities significantly tightened restrictions, reducing the water supplied by the system by about 25%, blaming extreme weather conditions.
“Measures will need to be taken so that the water that Cutzamala has can be distributed in time to ensure that it does not run out,” Conagua general manager Germán Arturo Martínez Santoyo said in a statement at the time.
About 60% of Mexico is experiencing moderate to extreme drought, according to a report published in February. Almost 90 percent of Mexico City is in severe drought, and the situation will only get worse as the rainy season is still months away.
“We are in the middle of the dry season and sustained temperature increases are expected through April or May,” said June Garcia-Becerra, an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Northern British Columbia.
Natural climate variability greatly affects this part of Mexico. Three years of La Niña brought drought to the region, and then the arrival of El Niño last year helped deliver a painfully short rainy season that failed to replenish reservoirs.
But the long-term trend of human-caused global warming hums in the background, fueling longer droughts and more intense heatwaves, as well as heavier rains when they arrive.
“Climate change has made droughts increasingly severe due to water scarcity,” said UNAM’s Sarmiento. In addition, high temperatures “caused existing water in the Cutzamala system to evaporate,” he said.
Last summer saw severe heat waves rock much of the country, killing at least 200 people. Without climate change, these heat waves would be “almost impossible,” according to an analysis by scientists.
Climate impacts collided with the growing pains of a rapidly expanding city. While the population is growing rapidly, experts say the central water system cannot keep up.
‘Day zero?’
The crisis has sparked a fierce debate about whether Cutzamala will reach a “day zero” in which the system drops to levels so low that it cannot provide water to city residents.
Local media reported widely in early February that an official from the Conagua branch said that “day zero” could come as early as June 26 if there was no significant rainfall.
But officials have since tried to reassure residents that there will be no day zero. Inside Press conference On February 14, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that work was continuing to solve water problems. Martí Batres Guadarrama, the mayor of Mexico City, recently said: Press conference that reports of day zero were “fake news” spread by political opponents.
Conagua declined CNN’s requests for an interview and did not answer specific questions about the possibility of a zero-day.
But many experts warn of a spiraling crisis. If Mexico City continues to use it the same way, it could run out of water before the rainy season arrives, Sosa-Rodríguez said. “We will probably face zero days,” he added.
He said this does not mean a complete collapse of the water system because the city is not dependent on a single source. This won’t be the same as Cape Town in South Africa came perilously close to drying out completely in 2018 after several years of severe drought. “Some groups will still have water,” he said, “but most people won’t.”
Raúl Rodríguez Márquez, president of the nonprofit Water Advisory Council, said he doesn’t believe the city will reach zero days this year but warned it will happen unless changes are made.
“We are in a critical situation and could reach an extreme situation in the next few months,” he told CNN.
‘I don’t think anyone was prepared’
For nearly a decade, Sosa-Rodríguez said he has been warning officials about the danger of zero days for Mexico City.
The solutions, he said, are clear: Better wastewater treatment will both increase water availability and reduce pollution; Rainwater harvesting systems can capture and purify rain, allowing residents to reduce their reliance on water mains or water trucks by 30%.
Repairing leaks will make the system much more efficient and reduce the volume of water that must be removed from the aquifer. He said nature-based solutions such as restoring rivers and wetlands would help provide and purify water, with the added benefit of greening and cooling the city.
Conagua said in a statement on its website that it is pursuing a 3-year project to install, develop and improve water infrastructure, including the addition of new wells and the commissioning of water treatment plants, to help the city cope with reductions in the Cutzamala system.
But in the meantime, tensions are rising as some residents are forced to cope with shortages while others (mostly in wealthier enclaves) are mostly unaffected.
“There is a clear disparity in access to water in the city, and it has to do with people’s income,” Sosa-Rodríguez said. He added that day zero may not have come yet for all of Mexico City, but some neighborhoods have been grappling with it for years.
Amanda Martínez, another resident of the city’s Tlalpan district, said water scarcity is nothing new for people here. He and his family often have to pay more than $100 for a tank of water on one of the city’s water trucks. But the situation is getting worse. She told CNN that she could sometimes go more than two weeks without water and was afraid of what might happen.
“I don’t think anyone was prepared.”
CNN’s Laura Paddison and Jack Guy reported from London, with Fidel Gutiérrez reporting from Mexico City.
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