WATER POLITICS

“The scarcity of water in the country due to water stress is the result of a combination of factors; On the one hand, the overexploitation of the aquifers, the high demand for the vital liquid in urban areas and industry, due to the construction of more residential areas in areas where there was no prior planning, the deficient water infrastructure, the lack of rain due to the phenomena derived from climate change and the absence of a culture to value and care for water,” said Rosario Sánchez, a scientist and researcher at the Institute of Water Resources at Texas A&M University, in an interview with Crónica.

The specialist stressed that the problem of shortage of the vital liquid is already a reality that is advancing and that many factors urgently need to be corrected so as not to depend exclusively on rain, there must be a real culture of water care and a program for overexploitation, distribution and water processing.

“The rains are not enough for the levels in the reservoirs and dams to recover,” since there are areas where it rains abundantly, but others, where it is most needed and which is in the northern regions of the country, rainfall has not necessary until now, which means that Mexico is experiencing a period of water stress, that is, there is an excessive demand for water, while the available quantity is low and restricted.

The doctor in Water Management and Hydrological Sciences stressed that “if there is no project that regulates the problem that exists in various areas of the country due to water scarcity, the situation could present more cases like the one faced in 2022 by the city of Monterrey, in Nuevo León, which experienced a period of atypical rationing due to this situation of drought and lack of rain”.

Rosario Flores cited the example of lack of water in the capital of Nuevo León, recalling that this problem was even noted in July of last year in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF), by the National Water Commission (Conagua), as an “emergency start” in Mexico, due to the exceptional drought.

The seriousness of the water scarcity problem, as the specialist points out, is not something to be taken lightly, since according to information from the Conagua, until August 2022, of the 2,471 municipalities in Mexico, 770 of them have some level of drought in their territories, while another 972 already had previous symptoms due to lack of water.

Referring to the factor of having good quality water, the doctor in Water Management and Hydrological Sciences highlighted that of the more than 5,000 dams and water spaces in the country, “many of them have some degree of contamination , which complicates the fact that the water to be sent to the communities must comply with some degree of processing to be considered of good quality, although in several regions due to lack of investment, the infrastructure for this is lacking.”

As additional information about what the distribution of water that comes out of the dams represents, most of it is used to generate energy and to a lesser extent for agricultural activities, but due to the drought and the need that cultivation areas require, the discharges of water tend to be abundant on occasions, which makes it clear that there is no regulation for its distribution.

The Texas A&M University researcher also highlighted that “the overexploitation of aquifers is an issue that will not stop due to the need for water, but what is urgent is that there be a regulation on the extraction and subsequent distribution, since they are factors that are not equitable”.

According to information from Conagua and the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), where they refer to the extraction of water from aquifers, they point out that in 1975 there were 32 overexploited groundwater spaces and by 2019, given the Demand for the growth of urban areas and industry that figure increased to 157, but by 2022 the overexploited aquifers increased 50 more, which is equivalent to 207 aquifers with an extraction on demand.

The specialist from Texas A&M University stressed that “the overexploitation of aquifers and not valuing or taking care of the water we have could lead us in a couple of decades to face a serious problem of scarcity like the one that has already been experienced in the north of the country and where some regions already face despite the rains”, this is because the country faces a problem of water stress due to lack of water, he said.