Mexico City may run out of water in 1.5 years

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Tiger bones on the soil are dry from drought, global warming.

Cutzamala system could collapse in a year and a half due to drought: expert

The level of the Cutzamala dams has dropped continuously in recent weeks and currently stands at just 42.8%

The Cutzamala system could collapse due to drought. The professor and researcher at the School of Engineering and Sciences of the Tecnológico de Monterrey, José Antonio Benjamín Ordóñez Díaz, warned that the rain deficit could exacerbate the low level of storage of the dams and this, in turn, prevent the system’s machinery from working adequately, with which the operation of this work that provides a third of the water that Mexico City consumes per day could collapse.

In a virtual press conference, Dr. Benjamín Ordóñez Díaz even set a fatal deadline of a year and a half for the water currently stored by the Cutzamala System dams to run out. This would generate that by operating with marginal minimum levels, this hydraulic work would operate under a tandeo scheme, affecting the availability of water in 12 city halls of the capital and 13 municipalities of the State of Mexico.

Photo: Angélica Escobar / Forbes Mexico.

“The Cutzamala System can collapse in a year and a half more or less, due to the supersaturation of sediments from the contribution of water bodies, that is, we are already working seriously to do things well or we are going to regret it, ” he warned. The reduction in the volume of water in the dams (whose storage only reaches 42.8%) would lead to another problem: the excessive formation of algae and other types of vegetation that would affect the quality of the water.

What does it mean that the System could collapse?

– (The Cutzamala System) would work with very marginal levels (of water) and a system of batches of water would have to enter. There is a very strong restriction that is associated with the availability of water and much of the machinery will not be able to work if it does not have the volume for which it was designed. If the volume is lowered, the concentration of salts and other materials will generate an atypical growth of algae and other aquatic vegetation that will not benefit (the dams).

José Antonio Benjamín Ordóñez Díaz, professor and researcher at the School of Engineering and Sciences of the Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Dr. Benjamín Ordóñez Díaz stressed: a collapse of the Cutzamala System “means a reduction to the minimum of the operation of the entire system and a shortage of water.” For this reason, he emphasizes that the authorities must work on the reforestation of the entire Cutzamala basin and on wastewater treatment, otherwise the water currently stored by the dams could be finished in a year or a year and a half.

“We need to restore all the mountains, forests and make the agricultural areas more technical that have a direct effect on the recharge of the Cutzamala System aquifer. The longer we take to meet this need, the faster we will run out of this water resource.

“The most important thing right now is to fully recycle all the water that comes out of the drain, once we recycle it, purify it and reinsert it into the system then we may have a two or three-year margin. This year it is predicted that it will rain less, if we do not all act, the water will run out ”, he warned.

Source: forbes.com.mx

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