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The Cutzamala system, which supplies drinking water to the Mexican capital, is at historically low levels after a long drought. This is not the only large city that is about to reach the so-called 'Day Zero'; Well, before, the risk was in Cape Town, Montevideo and São Paulo, among others.
On World Water Day 2024 there is not much to celebrate for several cities around the world. This is the case of Mexico City, where authorities are limiting water consumption in some parts. The taps only work for a couple of hours and people have to buy liquid in drums or receive it from tankers.
The reason is that there is less and less drinking water in the Valle de Bravo, Villa Victoria and El Bosque dams, which feed the city through the Cutzamala System.
In 2023, its levels fell below 40% until it had only 322 cubic meters of the 782 it can store. And unlike other years, this time the rains have been so scarce that reserves did not increase much. 2024 began with less water in the dams than what had happened in the last 20 years, according to the National Water Commission of Mexico.
Decreased rainfall due to climate change, groundwater depletion and historically poor management have posed challenges for years in Mexico. A situation that is particularly felt for women who are in charge of managing household water resources.
France 24's correspondent in Mexico, Aurora Bayoud, visited a town in the State of Mexico especially affected by this inequality in the availability of water resources. In Tablas del Pozo she showed that they are in charge of carrying water to sustain homes and they dedicate 64% of their time to this work, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico. That town has been without running water for 20 years.
One step away from 'Day Zero'
But Mexico City and Tablas del Pozo are not the only ones where water has been scarce. In fact, Cape Town, South Africa, was on the verge of running out of water resources.
In other words, he was about to reach 'Day Zero', as the moment when all the taps are turned off is called. For the South African city, it was going to happen on April 12, 2018. The estimate resulted from the calculation of when the six dams that feed the city of more than 4.5 million inhabitants would reach levels so low that they would be unsustainable. In your case, at 13.5% of its capacity.
The main cause was the drought that began in 2015 and, for three years, was the harshest of the century for Cape Town
To avoid 'Day Zero', authorities limited daily water consumption to 50 liters per person. In comparison, the emergency phase that Catalonia decreed in 2024 restricts it to 200 liters. While 50 liters means a shower of one and a half minutes, emptying the toilet and washing the dishes only once a day, and turning on the washing machine at most every week.
To the 500 million liters of water that they achieved saving daily, it was almost a miracle: it rained again. In this way, 'Day Zero' was postponed to the point that the authorities did not set a new date of restrictions until today.
Thus, Cape Town avoided 'Day Zero'; But, it marked history by becoming the first major city in the modern era to be on the verge of running out of water.
Other cities at risk of running out of water
Although Cape Town has been the best-known case, the risk has been latent in other parts of the world. In fact, 25 countries where a quarter of humanity lives face an extremely high risk of water stress, according to World Resources Institute, a think tank that proposes sustainable solutions. In other words, they are using up almost all the water they have.
Most of them are in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. There, agriculture, industry and large cities consume more than 80% of the water.
'Day Zero' has been closer in the Indian cities of Chennai and Bangalore. The first suffered a historic lack of water in 2019, because the monsoon rains on which they depend are increasingly erratic and because there is a lack of infrastructure and information on water resources. While in the second city, the situation has been critical for years because the water cannot cope with the accelerated growth of this city. Something similar happens in Jakarta (Indonesia), Beijing (China), Tokyo (Japan) and London (United Kingdom).
In America, two other large cities have had problems for decades finding enough drinking water for their millions of inhabitants. It is the case of Miami and Los Angeles, in the United States.
And the best-known and most recent cases towards the south of the continent were in Montevideo (Uruguay) and São Paulo (Brazil). In the first, the Paso Severino dam, which is the main source of drinking water for the Uruguayan capital, had only 2% of water supplies in July 2023. Even then 'Day Zero' was not declared, despite the fact that, for example, in Cape Town that limit for talking about the dreaded date was met if its reserves were below 13.5%.
A reality that also affected the Brazilian metropolis in 2015, when its main reservoir fell to 4% and there was no talk of a total lack of water either.
Even so, any of these cities or others can reach 'Day Zero'. Therefore, World Water Day, March 22, becomes a date to remember the importance of water supply and the infrastructure to protect it.
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