Mega City (Mexico City) May Be Months Away from Running out of Water

[Stuart G]

Last edited Sun Feb 25, 2024, 03:26 PM - Edit history (6)

Source: CNN

A sprawling metropolis of nearly 22 million people is facing a severe water crisis. Experts warn some taps could run dry soon. Megacity may be months away from running out of water ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alejandro Gomez has been without proper running water for more than three months. Sometimes it comes on for an hour or two, but only a small trickle, barely enough to fill a couple of buckets. Then nothing for many days.

Gomez, who lives in Mexico City's Tlalpan district, doesn't have a big storage tank so can't get water truck deliveries -- there's simply nowhere to store it. Instead, he and his family eke out what they can buy and store.

When they wash themselves, they capture the runoff to flush the toilet. It's hard, he told CNN. "We need water, it's essential for everything."

Water shortages are not uncommon in this neighborhood, but this time feels different, Gomez said. "Right now, we are getting this hot weather. It's even worse, things are more complicated."

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/

---

Horrific news

[FakeNoose]

1. Parts of Arizona will be looking at the same thing unless something changes

Luckily California seems to be over their years-long drought, so maybe it means there's a better future for Arizona too.

[IcyPeas]

4. Did you see this thread yesterday? Arizona giving away water to the Saudis.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=18716480

[Think. Again.]

2. Just the beginning.

[LiberalFighter]

3. 22 million for Mexico City and New York City is about 8 million.

It seems that overall there needs to be lower population.

For the hunters.... will they still be able to continue hunting deer, and other wildlife?

[tornado34jh]

5. Well you have to look at the location Mexico City stands

It's sits on what used to be Lake Texcoco. Mexico City doesn't have any natural outlets, so in heavy rain, it is prone to flooding. The second thing is altitude. It's one of the higher capital cities in the world, at around 7,200 feet.

Mexico City has what is called a subtropical highland climate (Cwb). It is dry in the winter, but wet in the summer, where most of its rain is from June through September. Normally the highest temperatures are supposed to be around 80 F, but it has been known to go as high as 93 F. But it appears that the previous rainy season was well below normal. Plus, they are overusing the aquifers and the city is sinking. Not to mention not far from there is an active volcano. But again, Mexico is very mountainous, so a lot of areas, especially in its northern and western parts, are a lot drier and are basically desert, particularly since they are in a rain-shadow effect.

[Igel]

7. I'm going to infer a couple of things.

First, since the underlying substrate is volcanic, at least the fact that it's in a basin probably means the aquifers are unconfined and the water can't easily drain away but is caught in a subsurface basin. It used to be a lake, after all.

Catching run-off in the city itself would just keep the water from the aquifer--it's a zero-sum game, but probably more energy efficient. Yeah, I could google that, but I'm googled out for a while.

Still, that's a volume probably far from what's necessary for the megalopolis that the DF has become, esp, when there's a secular dry spell, if not out-and-out drought. (It's February, it's Houston, and I'm going to soak my front yard to spare the grass, redbud, loquat, and various landscaping things. This is weird. But the last rainful that managed to dampen the ground under the trees was nearly a month ago and it hit 80 yesterday and today.)

More importantly, up to 40% of the Mex. DF water is wasted. (Then again, doesn't that just mean that what gets into the catch basin returns to the aquifer?) I'm guessing a lot's lost in being hoisted up from lower-lands to the DF. You know, that's a lot of water loss. Maybe a better use could be found for it?

But crap, the amount of energy necessary just to hoist that volume of water ... mgh and all that ... Good luck in net-zero.

Perhaps they should ponder the humble copiapoa and harvest atmospheric moisture?

(Note that the Maya were probably brought low when their cenotes ran low. I like the use of unconfined aquifers during drought but not on an ongoing basis; for that, you want surface water. Houston's often in a panic but its aquifers are unconfined and when somebody says it'll take years and years to recharge them, they're being crazy. I moved to Rochester NY when they were saying the same thing ... A drippy fall, a heavy-snow winter with a slow-melt drippy spring and by early summer the "many years" required to recharge the groundwater supply apparently had passed in less than a year. (Talk about a weird-ass ass-backwards Lorentz transformation.)

[Igel]

6. You linked to the front page.

Things fall off the front page while the issue or topic is still worth discussing.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/25/climate/mexico-city-water-crisis-climate-intl/index.html

Not that this particular link is necessarily stable. That's the fate of "citations" on the Interwreck: You cite it as a permanent source and next day it's vanished or it's edited to say something different. Oops.

But hey, better than paper.