It is already known, but nothing is lost by underlining it and, above all, by internalizing it: the so-called “natural disasters” are indeed disasters, but they are not natural but rather the result of situations resulting from human actions. Rivers have overflowed since the beginning of time, as have the movements of tectonic plates or the burning of forested areas, and meadows and sites that were once home to exuberant flora and fauna over the millennia became large expanses of dunes and dunes. However, it is human action that triggers the disaster: settlement and modifications to the original environment of coasts, rivers and sites prone to periodic flooding, landslides on slopes eroded by logging, construction on tremulous lands, etc.
In several regions of Mexico, the rainy season of 2025 was atypical and ended with a truly catastrophic end. While areas of drought persisted on the northern border, in the center of the country and in September rainfall was recorded on average up to 80 percent higher than in recent years. Between October 6 and 9, on both coasts and in central regions, rain caused overflows – some unprecedented – of rivers and landslides in the network of roads and paths. The most affected states were Veracruz, San Luis Potosí, Puebla, Hidalgo and Querétaro. To date, the official figures are: seven dozen municipalities very severely affected, almost two hundred isolated localities, 76 deaths, 39 people not located and around 100 thousand families affected in addition to considerable damage to regional productive activities.
It is practically impossible to foresee and avoid the entire range of “natural disasters” that can affect us. For millennia, ignorance of some of the factors that cause earthquakes, tidal waves and tsunamis, eruptions, storms or droughts, plagues, epidemics and similar events left human concentrations at the mercy of “the wrath of the gods.” Today, science allows, if resources and adequate organization and political will are available, to prevent or at least take measures in time to prevent these inevitable events from assuming a catastrophic character. The probability of a hurricane or storm forming and its probable magnitude and trajectory can now be determined with more or less accuracy; It is also now feasible to alert populations somewhat far from the epicenter of an earthquake a few minutes in advance or predict icy waves or extreme heat. However, there are still many situations that can be catastrophic and impossible to predict or avoid in time. There are others that, for historical reasons, have generated the conditions to promote the emergence and maintenance of large human settlements in risk areas but that today it is materially impossible to try to move them to safer places.
A case that illustrates the above is precisely that of Mexico City. Our capital is located in an area that is 2,240 meters above sea level and therefore today it is difficult, and very expensive, to supply it with water from sources located at a lower altitude and in the quantities required by a population of 22 million people. On the other hand, that city is surrounded by a ring of mountains and sits on what was once a large lake, therefore its subsoil is unstable and prone to experiencing the effects of telluric movements of magnitudes capable of causing catastrophic damage in such a densely populated area.
It serves as a contrast to compare our situation with that of the neighboring country to the south. In the colonial era, the Captaincy General of Guatemala and due to disasters caused by earthquakes, twice chose to move its capital to what were then considered safe places. There were two “natural” catastrophes that led to these moves. The first occurred in 1541 – an alluvium caused by movements of a nearby volcano – and another was a product of the earthquakes of 1773. In the capital of colonial Mexico the opposite happened: in the face of a great disaster, the decision was made to remain in the same place, but alter it. After the great flood of 1629 – whose effects lasted for five years – the possibility of changing the location of the lake city was rejected and it was decided to alter the nature of its basin by opening a drainage in the 18th century: the Tajo de Nochistongo. That was the beginning of a giant government effort to provide the great bowl of the Valley of Mexico with a drain. And the effort has not stopped.
Paradoxically, what we can call “the water problem” in CDMX today consists not only of its difficult daily drainage but also of the equally difficult task of providing it with drinking water, and in quantities and qualities appropriate to the ways of life of the millions of inhabitants of the large metropolitan area and making the “human right to water” not only a constitutional provision but a complete reality for all members of the megalopolis.
And to have an idea of what it means to provide drinking water, and sufficient water, partly coming from lower areas to an urban concentration of the magnitude of our capital and its surroundings, today we have a “Comprehensive evaluation of the drinking water policy of Mexico City 2018-2024”. This is the report recently presented by the Evaluation Council of Mexico City and was prepared by a team of nine specialists coordinated by Dr. Judith Domínguez Serrano from El Colegio de México.
The 292-page report addresses more than a hundred specific topics supported by an extensive bibliography. Its conclusion is not pessimistic but it is worrying because it makes it clear that “Mexico City faces an unprecedented water crisis. The effects of climate change are reflected in the impacts of extreme hydrometeorological phenomena: a drought of more than five years that in times of low water turns the already unequal access [al agua] in a very critical situation and, in rainy seasons, urban flooding that aggravates a structural situation”, (p. 26). Let’s look at some figures to realize the problem. In 2018 the average water consumption in the area studied was estimated at 350 liters per inhabitant per day, but today it has been reduced to only 147 liters and that average is misleading since there are areas of the city that consume 500 liters. per capita while in others they barely reach 100 liters. And here it is worth keeping in mind that the WHO recommends at least 100 to 150 liters per capita to make the human right to water effective. Those areas with less availability of water are already at the minimum limit of what is acceptable.
In addition to quantity there is the problem of quality, a 2020 study concluded that 18 percent of the city’s water had quality problems ranging from its heavy metal content to its bacteria. Of the surface water bodies that do not enter the drinking water system but are part of the Valley of Mexico environment, monitoring shows that 78 percent register high levels of contamination due to the uncontrolled discharges they receive along their routes.
Failures in the distribution network, largely already obsolete, cause 42 percent of the liquid to be lost in leaks. It is of little comfort to know that these water losses filter into an overexploited water table. It is estimated that there is a growing deficit of groundwater in the city. In 2023 “[l]The extraction in the Valley of Mexico aquifer presented an extraction of 215 percent of the volume with respect to recharge” (p. 16). It is obvious that this deficit is unsustainable in the long term!
Maintaining and, above all, updating the complex and patchy water supply system in the Valley of Mexico requires economic resources in amounts much higher than those currently allocated for this purpose. Therefore, it is necessary to review the rates charged for water consumption in each social sector in such a way that a supply system that does not require the subsidy or complement of the use of the so-called “pipes” can be self-financed and made sustainable, which among other things have already become another source of income for organized crime.
Today the cost of water in the city is subsidized, but in an unequal manner. The water consumption of lower-middle-income households benefits from 43 percent of the total subsidy granted to liquid consumption; upper-middle-income households receive 26 percent of that subsidy, but lower-middle-income households only benefit from 10.5 percent. Obviously this situation must be reversed for both economic and social justice reasons. And to the list of problems we must add that of precarious human settlements in aquifer recharge areas, this is another of the several challenges to be resolved, but always with a clear sense of equity. In short, the project of using the so-called “rain harvest” in homes is a good idea, but it requires incentives for the owners to decide to invest in the adaptations for the collection and storage that this “harvest” requires.
Finally, in the period evaluated in the aforementioned study that goes from 2018 to 2024, it is concluded that: “significant actions were carried out for the management [del agua en la capital] that allowed the feared ‘zero day’ to not be reached, such as reducing pressure on the network or agreements with other [grandes] users…that allowed the use of water in the city for domestic supply.” But ultimately the crisis is still there and its solution demands a centralization of water administration and long-term planning to address a problem that not only affects the Mexican capital, but also has the potential to affect the viability of the political system and the security of the Nation since a “natural disaster” in the political heart of Mexico is something that, due to its consequences, we simply should not allow ourselves.
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