The New Water General Law. And the Recent Reforms to the National Water Law

In December 2025, two water laws came into force in Mexico: the new Water General Law (LGA, Spanish initials), which aims to regulate Article 4, paragraph six of the Mexican Constitution, on the human right to water and sanitation for personal and domestic use, and reforms to the National Water Law (LAN, Spanish initials), which regulates Article 27 of the Constitution on national water [see box]. This text aims to reflect on how they arose and how they will coexist in the future for their effective application. Compliance with the new provisions will make it possible to guarantee the human right to water and sanitation and how this right will impact the regulation and management of national water: a real challenge.


In order to explain why two laws regulating the Constitution coexist today, it will be necessary to make a brief account of background and reasons, that will allow us to know what has happened and how they will operate to guarantee the human right to water and sanitation (HRWS), as well as the operation of the Integrated Water Resources Management System (IWRM). Both rest on the Dublin Principles—established at the 1992 International Conference on Water and the Environment (UNCED, 1992):

• Water as a finite social and economic good: the balance of the right of everyone to access clean water and sanitation at an affordable price is sought.
• The participation of users in water management, which must involve concessionaires, planners, and responsible authorities at all levels.
• The role of women in the responsible use of water is recognized. Women are the main caregivers of water at home; it is them and girls who go for the water in the early hours of the morning at great distances, a function for which they stop going to school; they are the ones who wash clothes, cook, clean the house, and wash the dishes; who participate in the daily struggle for water and to get their families ahead, in a context in which gender gaps in access to decision-making in terms of access to water and its management have not been reduced.
• Local management: in the case of Mexico, municipalities and the Water System of Mexico City are the public entities that guarantee the service availability and physical accessibility of every person, with quality, quantity, and affordable conditions. It is these entities that must ensure availability: that water supply is continuous and sufficient for personal and domestic uses (consumption, sanitation, food preparation, and general and personal hygiene). They are also responsible for accessibility: that water and sanitation facilities are physically accessible to all people, without discrimination and especially for vulnerable groups, and that each person has clean, safe water, free of microorganisms or chemicals that threaten health.

These principles, together with Resolution 64/292, approved on July 28, 2010 by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA, 2010), in which the human right to water and sanitation was explicitly recognized, were the guide for the reform of Article 4 of the Constitution carried out in 2012 with an addition to the sixth paragraph2 that radically changed the way in which the State should manage water. The text states that “Every person has the right to access, disposal, and sanitation of water for personal and domestic consumption in a sufficient, healthy, acceptable, and affordable manner” (DOF, 2012). It establishes that the law will define the bases for the participation of the federation through the National Water Commission (CONAGUA), in national planning and administration of basins; of the States (and CDMX) in technical and administrative support; of the municipalities and the Water System of Mexico City (SACMEX) as direct responsibles for bringing water to the faucet of the house, and of the citizens: it is recognized for the first time that society must participate in the management of the resource.

The Law referred to in Article 4 in its sixth paragraph is the LGA, published on December 11, 2025 (DOF, 2025), after 13 years of waiting 4since the text of the article was in contradiction to Article 27, fifth paragraph, and Article 115, section III, subsection A. It was not possible to issue the LGA as a reform to the LAN without generating a series of constitutional conflicts, one of which was in the attributions of the federation and the municipalities.

In the case of the states, the lack of explicit powers in the Constitution regarding water, its management, care, and protection, generates a vacuum in the integral management of water. The only entity with powers in water matters is Mexico City, based on Article 122 of the Constitution, paragraph C, which establishes mechanisms for administrative coordination between the federation, Mexico City and its territorial demarcations, and the states and co-urban municipalities in the Metropolitan Area. The LGA will establish the bases for the organization and operation of the Metropolitan Development Council, which will be responsible for agreeing on actions on human settlements, mobility and road safety, environmental protection, preservation and restoration of the ecological balance, transportation, transit, drinking water and drainage, solid waste collection, treatment and disposal, and public safety. For the rest of the country, the states adhere to the formula of Article 124 of the Constitution: “The powers that are not expressly granted by this Constitution to federal officials, are understood to be reserved to the States or to Mexico City, in the areas of their respective competences.”

Map of Basin Councils in Mexico

1. Baja California Sur

2. Baja California y Municipio de San Luis Río Colorado Sonora

3. Alto Noroeste

4. Ríos Yaqui y Mátape

5. Río Mayo

6. Ríos Fuerte y Sinaloa

7. Ríos Mocorito al Quelite

8. Ríos Presidio al San Pedro

9. Río Balsas

10. Costa de Guerrero

11. Costa de Oaxaca

12. Río Bravo

13. Nazas - Aguanaval

14. Altiplano

15. Lerma Chapala

16. Río Santiago

17. Costa Pacífico Centro

18. Ríos San Fernando - Soto La Marina

19. Río Pánuco

20. Ríos Tuxpan al Jamapa

21. Río Papaloapan

22. Río Coatzacoalcos

23. Costa de Chiapas

24. Ríos Grijalva y Usumacinta

25. Península de Yucatán

26. Valle de Méxic0

These inconsistencies and the lack of a clear structure with differentiated responsibilities with respect to water, became apparent when it was intended to integrate the HRWS into the LAN, whose scheme does not coincide with the principle of water as a national good managed by the federation. The LAN, in force since 1992 and reformed in 2025, focuses mainly on the administration of water as a national good that is regulated through concessions for different uses (irrigation, industry, and others). It is the main legal instrument of management and administration of a federal nature that regulates the exploitation, use, distribution, and control of water in Mexico. Its foundation stems from Article 27 of the Constitution, which states that ownership of water within the limits of the national territory belongs originally to the nation.

It is a law that centralizes many decisions in CONAGUA (a federal entity), which clashes with the reality of Article 115, where the operational responsibility for providing the public service of drinking water and the treatment of wastewater falls on municipalities. The states were integrated into the Basin Councils (map) with the enactment of the LAN on December 1, 1992, whose articles 13 Bis and 13 Bis 2 create these organisms as key forums for the decentralized administration of water. As CONAGUA (2024) indicates:
The fifth paragraph of Article 27 establishes that water is a “national good.” The LAN is the regulation of this paragraph and in the General Law of National Assets it is considered that water is a federal public domain good. It is important to point out that water is an object of preservation, protection, use, and restoration, as an ecosystemic element and basis of aquatic ecosystems, so the General Law of Ecological Equilibrium and Environmental Protection is also applicable. This means that water in Mexico is a national asset, that the federation (CONAGUA) is the water authority and that its management is exclusive to the federal Executive. 

LEGISLATIVE CHALLENGES
Article 115, section III, subsection A of the Constitution indicates that it is the municipalities that oversee public functions and services related to water: drinking water supply, drainage and sewerage, and treatment and disposal of wastewater. The first challenge was to establish whether the human right to water and sanitation was equivalent to the public services indicated in the constitutional text. If it was considered so, then the municipality was responsible for guaranteeing the bare minimum. However, Article 4 involved the federation, the states, the municipalities, and the citizenry, a situation beyond what was indicated by Article 115. This was one of the first aspects to consider that the LGA established the distribution of competences in this area. Article 3 of the LGA states as part of its purpose in section III: “To establish the instances, instruments, and procedures for the participation of the Federation, states, and municipalities in the surveillance of the human right to water.”

IN THE GENERAL LAW OF NATIONAL ASSETS, WATER IS CONSIDERED IS A FEDERAL PUBLIC DOMAIN GOOD

In the constitutional text, the HRWS was a diffuse responsibility. It was not clear where the obligation of the federation ends and where that of the municipality begins to guarantee that water reaches the poorest and most vulnerable communities (those not connected to the municipal public service), what was the function of the states, and what corresponded to CONAGUA. Now the LGA establishes in its article 22 a situation that could not be regulated by the LAN: “The Commission, the Basin Councils, the agencies of the states and municipalities that provide water and sewerage services are obliged to guarantee the human right to water under the terms of this Law.”

To effectively enforce both laws and reduce the differences in competencies and functions between the federation, the states, and the municipalities, improving coordination, it is crucial to implement comprehensive solutions that cover the environmental, engineering, budgetary, and technical fields. Today’s fragmentation requires a reengineering of the way resources are managed and public services are delivered.

The LGA attempted to define the different competencies in the human right to water and sanitation, but we will have to wait for answers in its regulations to know who pays and to whom, who builds and where, who maintains, preserves and repairs the equipment, and, above all, who pays for the electricity for pumping. As for guaranteeing a vital minimum, it must be defined who determines the number of free or low-cost liters per day and to whom and how the resource is supplied; who pays for the gasoline of tankers, who decides what they cost and for whom they should be free. If there is hydraulic infrastructure, it is necessary to define who is responsible in case of leaks, floods, or waterlogging. When there is no water, it must be established who is being claimed; who and how decides how alternate supply is delivered, and at what times. Although 93 percent of households have access to a piped network, the Center for Public Policy Research reports that 33.5 percent of homes do not receive daily supply (IMCO, 2023).

In the case of sanitation and wastewater treatment mechanisms, municipalities today cannot afford all the necessary infrastructure, equipment, trained technical personnel, and energy on their own. The 2025 reforms to the LAN strengthen municipalities’ capacities in the provision of services and toughen the responsibility for water treatment and federal oversight of local management. In this sense, it is necessary to implement financing and collaboration schemes to face such an important task.


We face the need for IWRM to prioritize hydraulic infrastructure. In the 2025 reforms to the LAN, IWRM is defined as the set of works for collection, distribution, and cleaning (sanitation) aimed at mitigating environmental and health risks. It involves water capture, dams, aqueducts, and wells to obtain the resource; distribution through pipe networks and tankers that carry water to homes and industries; sanitation with treatment plants, and sewerage to clean wastewater before returning it to the receiving bodies which, in turn, are national water. A hydraulic infrastructure for a small or medium-sized municipality requires a comprehensive, sustainable and multi-year plan that includes modernization and sanitation. This implies federal or state investments and financing, since projects can range from seven million pesos for minor repairs, to 480 million pesos for complex regional infrastructures. A medium-sized municipality can allocate between five and 15 percent of its expenditure budget annually only for the operation and basic maintenance of the sewerage system, not counting large expansion works that require state or federal financing (CONAGUA, 2025). And all this must be implemented in three years, which is the duration of a municipal administration.

Another underlying problem was to establish an order of priority for personal and domestic use of water in the scheme for granting concessions and recovering them, as indicated in the reforms to the LAN to provide the public drinking water service. Priority is essential for equitable supply and for a fair distribution of water. In Mexico, up to 15 million people lack access to drinking water. According to the Water Advisory Council, only 58 percent of the population has this basic service (Castillo, 2025). According to INEGI data, almost 740 percent of the localities in the country lack a piped water network. However, at the municipal level, only 17 municipalities (located mainly in Oaxaca, Puebla, Chiapas, Guerrero, Michoacán, and Veracruz) reported not offering the service to any of their inhabitants (INEGI, 2023). With these figures, the magnitude of the investments required by municipalities to bridge the gap in the fulfillment of the right of access to water for personal and domestic consumption and its sanitation is unimaginable and unquantifiable. The only way is for everyone—authorities, experts, communities, industrialists, traders, scientists—to participate in the search for solutions.

TO EFFECTIVELY ENFORCE BOTH LAWS IT IS CRUCIAL TO IMPLEMENT COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTIONS THAT COVER ENVIRONMENTAL, ENGINEERING, BUDGETARY, AND TECHNICAL FIELDS

For the effective enforcement of both laws, solutions must be built that allow the adoption of scientific schemes applied to the local economy, such as the payment for environmental services (PES), by which users and industries in lowland areas directly finance the communities of the highlands for the conservation of waterheds. Another solution is technical performance contracts: instead of the municipality assuming all the risk, it partners with experts and companies to link payment with leakage reduction and physical efficiency; if the system saves water, that saving pays for the investment. Another is data governance and citizen audit, which consists of scientists and communities monitoring the quality and availability of water in real time. Transparency reduces resistance to paying fair rates; when users see that the resource is correctly managed and the circular economy scheme is incorporated, their resistance to assuming costs decreases.

Based on a systemic approach to the effective enforcement of environmental legislation, today there are not only two laws on water—one for the human right to water and sanitation and the other for its comprehensive management. New regulatory bodies are added, such as the General Law of Circular Economy and the Law on Quality Infrastructure which allow the entire regulatory system to contribute to the fulfillment of the Legitimate Public Interest Objectives (OLIPs), in which water is one of most important.

The construction of these solutions seeks to overcome the model in which the federation has control and the states and municipalities present technical weakness, to move towards a cooperative and functional federalism. When the costs of infrastructure, maintenance, and sanitation exceed the management capacity of governments, local revenues, and federal budget support, the solution ceases to be purely technical and becomes co-participatory. In addition to large works, a financial and social system must be designed to keep them operating to guarantee the human right to water, and fair and equitable management of the resource. The lack of institutionality and co-responsibility transforms water: from a vital resource it becomes a focus of conflict. When the State does not exercise its role of authority and users do not know “where the water comes from,” when the ecosystem reaches its limits and there is a lack of resources for its equitable distribution, the human right becomes an empty promise. We have the duty and the hope that, by applying both laws, we will be able to achieve quality of life thanks to water.

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