It is important that Mexico places water management as a priority, given the water crisis that the country is going through, said this Monday the international consultant in water resources management, José Antonio Rodríguez Tirado.
“We need to work very hard, place the water issue as a priority on the political, economic and social agenda,” said the renowned specialist, who attended the first Climate Parliament in the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico, convened by the parliamentary group of the Movimiento Ciudadano (MC) party.
The expert, who participated in the table ‘Towards a General Water Law’, explained that one in three inhabitants in the urban environment “receives water and sanitation intermittently”, that is, “they do not receive it 24 hours a day, while two out of three people in the rural environment “do not receive water services continuously”.
About the so-called ‘Day zero’, Rodríguez Tirado considered that it is said that that day will come when the free water supply ends and access to the liquid begins to be rationed.
However, he said, “it should be considered that ‘Day zero’ is now, because the rivers are polluted, the sources are overexploited, that is how we must understand it.”
He also regretted that the different Governments in Mexico have placed this important issue at a third level, “since the best results in water matters were obtained when we had a Ministry of Hydraulic Resources”, which was dissolved in 1976 and integrated into other ministries.
‘Day zero’ in Mexico: they warn that water management must be a priority and does not require a large investment
He pointed out that for Mexico City “to receive an external source of supply it would take around 10 years” and therefore, he pointed out, “it is essential to recover the groundwater that is currently a reserve that is at risk”.
“Groundwater sources of supply were formed over centuries, but we are extracting more water than infiltrates,” he said.
He explained that the water issue “does not require as much money as it is believed, if you give water 0.06% of GDP, we are talking about 108,000 million pesos, for 15 years you will lift the country and it will be at another level”.
In his turn, the MC deputy, Braulio López, explained that Mexico is facing “high risks of drought and ranks among the first countries with water stress indices”.
In that sense, he referred that by the end of January 2024 “approximately 60% of the country was reported in drought” and added that to date it is diagnosed that 101 of the 653 aquifers that exist in Mexican territory are overexploited.
Meanwhile, Tamara Luengo Schreck, founder and director of the Aqueduct organization, considered that the water crisis is not a resource crisis, but rather a management crisis.
Source: Forbes
