Water Crisis in the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico. Alternatives to Face It

In this article I start from the idea that the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico (ZMVM) is experiencing a systemic water crisis that can worsen under the pressures of climate change. I am not talking about an imminent widespread collapse but I maintain that the current pattern of operation will gradually decrease the ability to meet the needs of the population and the economy, further damage natural resources, and become a negative factor for the governability of the metropolis.

In this analysis I do not rely on a predictive model that allows us to establish time horizons and parameters of the evolution of this crisis, but I use a mixed approach that mixes quantitative elements with qualitative judgments. We know that future can hardly be predicted. Although there are some phenomena in the natural and social world where predictive models can reach a high degree of certainty, when dealing with the case of a water system located in one of the largest metropolises in the world, conditioned by multicausal factors of a very diverse nature, we require a different approach such as the one used here. 

I start with a description of the water system of the ZMVM highlighting its insertion in Mexico City’s Hydro-Politan Region, then I outline a general diagnosis that tries to explain what the systemic crisis consists of, and finally I present some solution proposals to discussion. 

ZMVM’S WATER SYSTEM: WHAT IS IT?
According to official sources of the federal government (Gobierno de México, 2024), the ZMVM is made up of the 16 mayors of Mexico City (9.2 million inhabitants), 45 municipalities of the State of Mexico (11.9 million inhabitants) and two municipalities more in the state of Hidalgo (about 300 000 inhabitants), making a total of 21.4 million inhabitants. The hydraulic infrastructure located in the ZMVM not only includes the existing one within its political-administrative limits but also includes a vast primary network that is located outside the Basin of Mexico and that includes the water supply systems (Cutzamala and Lerma), the evacuation of sewage and rainwater (Deep Drainage), wastewater treatment (Atotonilco Plant), and water distribution for agricultural irrigation (see map).

 Elaborado por Manuel Perló y Bibiana Monsivais

Some authors have called this mesoregion the Hydro-Politan Region of Mexico City (RHCM) (Perló Cohen & González Reynoso, 2005; González Reynoso, 2016), which began to be built in the 17th century (Huehuetoca Tunnel, 1608) and over time has come to integrate four basins located in various entities in the center of the country and whose influence reaches the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of México. Inside is the ZMVM with its hydraulic system. Addressing this huge region is relevant not only in academic terms; it has to do with the operation dynamics of the ZMVM. For example, water supply depends significantly on the liquid of the Cutzamala basin and the Lerma aquifer. The same can be said of the outflow of (black) wastewater and rainfall that are expelled through the Deep Drainage system that leads them to Hidalgo state. In this sense, any alteration that occurs in any part of this large system affects its different components, as was clearly observed during the 2023-2024 cycle, when the reduction of the storage facilities of the dams in the Cutzamala system, due to extreme drought, significantly affected the water supply in the ZMVM. 

This primary infrastructure network of the RHCM is articulated with the water systems of the political-administrative entities that make up the ZMVM, adding tens of thousands of kilometers of secondary water and drainage networks, hundreds of re-pumping plants, tens of dams and regulating channels of different dimensions, hundreds of wastewater treatment plants, of purifying plants, and of storage tanks in the distribution system (tables 1 and 2).

  SACMEX, 2018

 SACMEX, 2018

The information available for the metropolitan municipalities located in the State of Mexico and in Hidalgo state is incomplete and dispersed, but it allows us to infer that it is similar in extension and complexity as Mexico City.

Therefore, seen as a whole, the ZMVM has one of the most extensive and complex water infrastructures among the great metropolises of the planet. In 2026 its impact reaches more than 25 million people, almost 23 million living in the ZMVM plus other population groups found in the Cutzamala and Lerma basins and in the water-receiving regions in Hidalgo.

SYSTEMIC CRISIS
We do not have a comprehensive diagnosis for this vast network of infrastructure, among other reasons because there are multiple levels of water governance and administration that manage the different subsystems and each of them presents specific conditions due to its different age, the type of materials used in its construction, the state of maintenance they receive, the damage they suffer due to problems of subsoil subsidence and theft, among many other factors. There are evaluations focused exclusively on Mexico City (SACMEX, 2018), others for the Cutzmala System (Banco Mundial, 2015), for water quality in Mexico City (Mazari-Hiriart et al., 2019) and, recently, for the Water Plan of the State of Mexico (Gobierno del Estado de México, 2025). 

 Monserrat García Silva

Some of the problems repeatedly mentioned for the system as a whole in official reports and in research from specialists are the following:

1. Serious needs and inequalities in the population’s access to water and sanitation services.​​​​​
2. Loss of between 30 and 35 percent of the water distributed by public networks. 
3. Poor water quality. 
4. Recurrent floods, some of them catastrophic. 
5. Deficit and in some cases financial bankruptcy of the water operators. 
6. Abandonment and underutilization of waste-water treatment plants. 
7. General lack of maintenance that causes loss of efficiency. 
8. Overexploitation of aquifers and subsoil subsidence. 
9. Social and political conflicts over access to water. 
10. Widespread theft of water and vandalism that directly affects the infrastructure. 

The problems caused indirectly by the type of pressure to which these systems are subjected must also be considered. Undoubtedly, among the most serious are the differential subsidence of the subsoil caused by overexploitation to which the aquifers of the ZMVM are subjected, which are the main source of water supply (40 cubic meters per second, which represents between 65 and 70 percent of the water distributed in the networks), and are the cause of severe and costly damage to infrastructure and construction. Pollution in soil and aquifers should be added to this.

The diagnosis must also include the opinion of users. General population censuses record high levels of coverage. According to them, in Mexico City 98 percent of the population has the service; drainage reaches up to 94 percent, and in the metropolitan municipalities of the State of Mexico coverage of up to 95 percent is reported (although in the case of drainage, with enormous disparities between the municipalities of the north of the ZMVM, which report coverage ranging from 85 to 100 percent, and those located in the south of the valley, where the proportion of coverage drops to a range of 65 to 75 percent). But the reality is that government surveys of the population and water quality monitoring show a rather poor picture.

Among the results reported by the National Survey on Quality and Government Impact (INEGI, 2024), we find that only 58.4 percent of Mexico City’s population receives a constant supply of water; 52 percent receive it with acceptable quality; only 20.2 percent consider it drinkable without risk of getting sick; and only 54.2 percent report “satisfaction” with the service. In the case of the capital’s drainage, 31.6 percent of the surveyed population stated that the drainage and sewerage service receives frequent maintenance; 30.7 percent reported that the system received constant cleaning, and less than half (46.3 percent) reported “satisfaction” with the service.

In the case of the State of Mexico, its Water Plan 2024-2029 (Gobierno del Estado de México, 2025) reports that in the water quality monitoring carried out by CONAGUA, which served as the basis for developing the quality semaphore, from 77 applied in the north of the Valley of Mexico, 46 found poor quality, and out of 22 practiced in the south of the valley, 15 reported poor quality.

In short, we have a very inequitable system that destroys natural resources and the ecosystem, that functions inefficiently, that has negative impact on public health, that presents strong resistance to change, that is extremely vulnerable to acute climatic events, and that does not adequately meet the needs of the population. I believe that we are facing a systemic crisis in which different subsystems are interconnected: ecological, technical, social, and of governance.

WHAT SOLUTIONS ARE AVAILABLE?
There is a broad consensus among governments, specialists, private entrepreneurs, and communities that the ZMVM crosses through a serious water crisis and that it is necessary and urgent to modify the existing model. For example, the Water Plan for the State of Mexico 2024-2029 (Gobierno del Estado de México, 2025) recognizes that “the State of Mexico is going through a serious water crisis,” and in 2016 the former Water System of Mexico City (SACMEX, today the Secretariat of Integrated Water Management) recognized that the water system was far from sustainable.

Discordance between points of view begins to appear when one tries to explain this crisis and especially when proposing measures to overcome it. One of the positions says that we have stopped investing in the water sector and that we require more resources to renew the entire technological infrastructure. To this end they propose strengthening the sector’s finances by channeling greater public resources, but they also propose to improve the cost collection in public systems, to introduce market mechanisms that allow the sector to capitalize, or even resort to national and international loans. From this point of view, projects such as importing water from distant basins are still valid options (for example, from the Tula river sub-basin), and above all renewing an old infrastructure, something that is completely required.

An opposite perspective maintains that the problems we suffer come from the water model that has historically governed water management in Mexico City, characterized by a simultaneous policy of expelling water and bringing it from different basins, of using gray infrastructure to the detriment of nature-assisted alternatives, and of not respecting the natural water cycle.

To the above points of view, we must add the one that maintains that the problem must be solved with a metropolitan perspective that allows for the coordination of plans and actions of the multiple authorities that concur in the Basin of Mexico to avoid the dispersion of efforts and the conflicting policies that hinder comprehensive management, and also the one that insists that respect for the rule of law must prevail and claim for an end to impunity for crimes of irregularity, theft, and water trafficking, which have fallen into the hands of criminal gangs.

What to do before this diversity of points of view—only sketched out here in very broad way? I believe that each of them enriches our understanding of the origin of the crisis and can provide valid solutions. The era of exclusive paradigms must open up to competitive coexistence between them. The existence of an alternative paradigm is a factor that favors change, but it is not enough for it to occur. As noted by Wostl-Phal et al. (2006), it requires learning processes and, I would add, evaluation of their effectiveness. In this line of thought, we must give way to a transformative incrementalist transition that allows us to change the water model in the long term (adaptation process), but at the same time it is essential that we improve its functioning in the short and medium term (self-regulation process).

We must recognize that we are facing a complex, systemic problem, which requires a multiple, creative approach. A strategic perspective with a horizon of 20 years or more is required, at the same time as immediate action in the short and medium term. We need to design a multisectoral and multi-objective program that allows us to coordinate plans, financial resources, legislation, and actions in different time horizons to face the problems successfully, prioritizing the most urgent but without ceasing to act decisively on the underlying problems.

 Monserrat García Silva

Without pretending to be exhaustive, I suggest that we should discuss the following general proposals:

1. In the long term, it is necessary to change the prevailing hydraulic model with a new type of sustainable projects from the water point of view, with both green and gray infrastructures, which allow the restoration of the water balance within the Basin of Mexico. Large transfer and expelling projects must be restricted but not with disqualifications, but with arguments and alternative projects that demonstrate viability. More than images or very idealized visions of what our water system should be like, we must move forward on very realistic bases and principles that allow us to stop deterioration, achieve systemic stability and initiate a deep transformation. 
2. In the short and medium term, we have to prioritize projects that contribute to improving the efficiency and operation of the existing infrastructure, to “put the existing system back on its feet.” We need to drastically reduce the losses experienced by the water distribution and drainage networks; to restore the operation and expand the capacity of wastewater treatment plants, and to initiate water consumption reduction programs in all economic and social areas. These objectives must become leverage points that allow positive changes that can be extended to the entire water system. With the savings generated by an improvement in the efficiency of the system, programs can be developed concomitantly to bring water supply to the population that is suffering greatest needs, and begin to reduce the overexploitation of aquifers and to decrease flows imported from distant basins. 
3. Sustainability-based projects have received little attention and few resources for their construction. The project to recover the ancient Texcoco Lake, the construction of water parks, hydro-urban acupuncture, the rescue of rivers and other water bodies, and the harvesting of rainwater at the domestic and even large-scale levels must receive significant funding and support. This will allow a water transition to begin. 
4. Taking advantage of the recent approval of the New General Water Law and the reforms to the National Water Law that gives a role of renewed authority to the federal government [see pp. 146 in this issue], the rule of law must be re-established by eradicating the irregularity that afflicts the current system. The leading role of the federal government must be strengthened, but without suffocating the initiative and independence of the other levels of government and the projects of local communities with an inoperative and suffocating paternalism. Metropolitan coordination between the concurrent governments in the ZMVM and those of the RHCM should undoubtedly be encouraged but the absence of a metropolitan agreement should not stop immediate initiation of an action plan. We must creatively look for new financing mechanisms to facilitate the transformation process. Without medium- and long-term financial resources, beyond the necessary budgetary resources, the necessary changes simply cannot be achieved. Tariff restructuring is necessary and, although the largest consumers must pay more, it is necessary to move away from the populist criteria of not charging costs at all. Today, more than ever, it is necessary to encourage the participation of private and community enterprises of all sizes in the renewal of the system, so that they provide capital, expert knowledge, and greater efficiency. Why not propose an ambitious public issuance of bonds for water rescue in the Basin of Mexico that would partially finance the priority investments that are required, open to all citizens, governments, and national and foreign investment funds? Wouldn’t this become for us, the inhabitants of this metropolis, a way to invest in our own future? 
5. It is necessary to open a broad debate to the whole of society that allows progress in the definition of a joint, consensual strategy to create a new water system for the ZMVM, seeking the construction of agreements with very precise objectives and goals. 

FINAL THOUGHTS
The water system of the ZMVM is facing a crisis and immediate action is required that contemplates short-, medium-, and long-term objectives. For the time being, it is necessary to ensure that the system manages to stop its decline, to stabilize its functioning and to initiate, in a clear and sustained way, its transformation. There are no inexorable obstacles that force us to remain in the crisis and that prevent us from achieving a fairer, more sustainable and efficient water system. Mexico City has been the protagonist of episodes of resilience, creativity, and change in the past. Successful international experiences in cities such as Curitiba, Phnom Penh, Seoul, and Singapore, or in countries such as Cambodia, China, Israel, and the Netherlands, show us that there is a more harmonious, sustainable, and desirable water future for the inhabitants of the planet, and that in Mexico City we can aspire to a similar scenario. Delaying solutions that today seem very expensive and complicated will only make the cost of facing them greater in the future.

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