{"id":68016,"date":"2024-05-11T16:57:07","date_gmt":"2024-05-11T21:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=68016"},"modified":"2024-05-11T16:57:07","modified_gmt":"2024-05-11T21:57:07","slug":"north-americas-biggest-city-is-running-out-of-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=68016","title":{"rendered":"North America\u2019s biggest city is running out of water"},"content":{"rendered":"
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North America\u2019s biggest city is running out of water<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

Mexico City is staring down a water crisis. It won\u2019t be the last city to do so.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mexico City is being threatened by a water crisis after the main reservoirs remain under 40 percent of their full capacity due to low rainfall, geography, and lack of infrastructure.<\/figcaption>\u00a0Hector Vivas\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/span>.<\/figure>\n
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Mexico City is parched.<\/p>\n

After abysmally low amounts of rainfall over the last few years, the reservoirs of the Cutzamala water system that supplies over 20 percent of the Mexican capital\u2019s 22 million residents\u2019 usable water are running out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it doesn\u2019t start raining soon, as it is supposed to, these [reservoirs] will run out of water by the end of June,\u201d Oscar Ocampo, a public policy researcher on the environment, water, and energy,\u00a0told my colleagues over on the\u00a0Today, Explained<\/em>\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Already, some households receive\u00a0unusably contaminated water<\/a>; at times, others receive none at all. It\u2019s stoking tensions over obvious inequities:\u00a0Who gets water and who doesn\u2019t<\/a>?<\/p>\n

The crisis is also leading Mexico City to siphon more from the underground aquifers on which the city sits, a decision that\u2019s not just unsustainable without replenishment but also\u00a0causes the ground to sink<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 at a rate of almost five inches each year, Ocampo said.<\/p>\n

While many factors that led to this moment might be specific to Mexico City, or\u00a0CDMX<\/a>\u00a0(including the Spanish colonists\u2019 decision hundreds of years ago to drain the lake on which the city originally sat), or this moment in time (see:\u00a0El Ni\u00f1o<\/a>\u00a0exacerbating droughts), the bigger issue is not.<\/p>\n

Bogot\u00e1, Colombia, is\u00a0rationing water<\/a>\u00a0amid a drought that has pushed reservoirs to \u201chistorically low\u201d levels. And you might remember\u00a0Cape Town staring down its own Day Zero crisis<\/a>\u00a0in 2018. A few years earlier, Sao Paulo, Brazil\u00a0confronted<\/a>\u00a0a similar situation.<\/p>\n