La ciudad sumergida. Episodios extraordinarios del agua en la Ciudad de México. Review by Carlos Maza

La ciudad sumergida. Episodios extraordinarios del agua en la Ciudad de México (The Sunken City. Extraordinary Episodes of Water in Mexico City), by Manuel Perló Cohen, is made up of eight “events” written in simple and very pleasant language. It shows that the relationship of Mexico City and the Valley of Anahuac with its water has been determined by government decisions without consultation or popular or citizen participation—although inspired by the need to protect people. But it might have been impossible from the beginning: to extract the water, hide them, stop them. 

Among the most interesting elements of this collection of stories that portray our water history through its most outstanding milestones, is an uncommon vision in the historical perspective since Perló does not establish a rupture but a continuity of problems and solutions from before the arrival of the conquistadors. The first episode covers the disputes over the water of Chapultepec that pitted the lordship of Azcapotzalco against its vassals, the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, and that led to the war that reversed their positions. From then on, a process of construction of large hydraulic works was developed that included aqueducts
—the Chapultepec one, precisely—, barriers, dikes, and roads.

Map of Tenochtitlan, printed 1524 in Nuremberg, Germany. Colorized woodcut. On the left, the Gulf of Mexico (South is at the top, part of Cuba left); on the right, Tenochtitlan with West at the top.

 Friedrich Peypus (1485–1534)

Perló comments that the decision to settle on an islet in the center of a lake whose water were not suitable for human consumption and agriculture may not have been the best: with the growth of the Aztec metropolis, the problems that afflict us today began and with them the series of portentous experiments that over almost seven centuries have continuously transformed the territory.

Once the capital of New Spain was established in Mexico City, floods followed one another systematically and the supply of water for consumption and agriculture became increasingly pressing. Colonial authorities, insisting on building dikes and barriers, proceeded to think of ways to extract excess water, and at the same time, they built aqueducts to lead to the center of the capital from the surrounding mountains, especially to the north and west. The second event of the book is set at the beginning of the 17^th century, when one of the most outstanding scientists of the time, Enrico Martínez, thought, for the first time, about drainage tunnels. A third event focuses on the other side of the water coin, the provision of healthy water, and describes the “ghost aqueduct” that brought water from Santa Fe (today’s fourth section of the Bosque de Chapultepec park) to the Alameda.

Guadalupe Aqueduct in Mexico City.

 CETIS 7

The idea of drainage tunnels would accompany us from then until now, Perló relates, with outstanding moments during the 19^th century—the fourth episode—when the Porfirian dictatorship made large investments to expand the drainage capacity of tunnels of colonial heritage such as the one in Huehetoca: The General Drainage of the Valley, completed at the beginning of the 20^th century.

The fifth event allows the author to cross time towards modernity through the aesthetic evocation of the landscape, both from literature, taking Alfonso Reyes Visión de Anáhuac (Vision of Anahuac) as a common thread, and from painting and architecture, which reach Diego Rivera’s murals in the Cárcamo de Dolores, at the second section of the Bosque de Chapultepec park. This event focused on the arts marks the end of the lake landscape and enters fully into the dried city, victim of dust storms, subsidence, floods, and shortages in supply.

During the 20^th century, post-revolutionary governments continued to carry out gigantic works to drain the valley, but a clearer knowledge of the dynamics of the water also emerged, thanks especially to the intervention of engineer Nabor Carrillo—sixth event—who discovered the reason for the Mexico City’s sinking in the operation of the increasingly numerous artesian wells throughout the valley: Groundwater extraction has a direct impact on the compaction of clays in the subsoil. Carrillo was also one of the first scientists to consider the possibility of a recovery of the water bodies of the valley.

The drainage thesis culminated in the famous Deep Drainage (seventh event) completed in the 1970s, under the government of Luis Echeverría (and revised, expanded and sustained to this day); one of the largest works undertaken in this history. The last episode that Perló recounts takes place in 2024, when the extremes of our water crisis came together: first a drought of great proportions that severely impacted the supply of the resource, followed by a particularly intense rainy season that caused serious floods.

The conclusions of this story stand out in terms of the possibility of rescuing our bodies of water, of thinking about recycling technologies, of rethinking the works that have given the city to the automobile, of designing a sustainable future, but without abandoning the old solutions that still serve us, such as the Deep Drainage. The book includes at the end images of this history, from the Codex Durán to the Deep Drainage, including the extraordinary three-dimensional digital recreations of Tenochtitlan in its time of splendor made by Thomas Kole, one of them on the cover.

Inauguration of the sculpture “Monument to the deep drainage workers” by Ángela Gurria.

 Fundación ICA

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