Mexico City.- Looking out over her neighborhood from a cable car on a recent morning, Sonia Estefanía Palacios Díaz scanned a sea of blue and black water tanks, pipes and cables for rainwater-harvesting systems.
“There’s one there!” he exclaimed, pointing in the direction of a black tank connected to a smaller blue one, with connecting pipes snaking up to the ceiling where the water is collected.
“I’m always looking for rainwater harvesting systems,” he said with a smile. “I’m always looking for where I can set up a rainwater harvesting system.”
Driven by a prolonged drought and erratic public water supplies, many Mexico City residents are turning to rainwater. The pioneering company Isla Urbana, which does nonprofit and for-profit work, has installed more than 40,000 rainwater harvesting systems across Mexico since it was founded 15 years ago. And the Mexico City government has invested in installing 70,000 systems since 2019 — a figure that still represents just a drop in the bucket in the sprawling metropolis of some 9 million people.
But there is little education and limited resources to maintain the systems after they are installed, so they fall into disuse or residents end up selling their parts.
And this is where Palacios Díaz and a group of other women come in, forming the Pixcatl cooperative, which means “water harvest” in Nahuatl, an indigenous language.
In lower-income areas like Iztapalapa — Mexico City’s most populous district — the group is trying to keep the systems running while educating residents on how to maintain them. That includes brainstorming their own designs and giving residents low-cost options for additional materials.
Palacios Díaz has lived with water shortages in Iztapalapa for as long as she can remember. “People here have been waiting for water trucks from 3 a.m. to 2 p.m.,” she said at her mother’s home. “There was a time when we went more than a month without a regular water supply.”
Earlier this year, the reservoirs that supply the capital were dangerously low. Authorities reduced the amount of water being released, and neighborhoods unaccustomed to water shortages were faced with a new reality.
As the rainy season began, much of Mexico was in the midst of a moderate to severe drought. The country’s dams are beginning to approach half their capacity, but have been filled only slightly, according to recent reports from the National Water Commission.
The country relies on rains — which typically end in October — to fill reservoirs, but drought has left them so low that it could take years.
This has encouraged many Mexicans like Palacios Díaz to resort to rainwater harvesting.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she taught classes on urban agriculture and water harvesting at a local community space. It wasn’t until her students said they wanted to learn how to install and understand the workings of their own systems that she seriously considered taking a government course. After enrolling in a training program in 2022 to become an installer, she met other young women from the city interested in rainwater harvesting systems and formed the cooperative.
Near the foot of a volcano on the outskirts of Iztapalapa, Lizbeth Esther Pineda Castro —another member of the cooperative— and Palacios Díaz adjusted a ladder to reach the roof of a small house. The two-story house inherited by Sara Huitzil Morales and her niece is located in the Buenavista neighborhood of Iztapalapa.
Huitzil’s mother was eligible to receive a free water collection system from the Mexico City government in 2021. After installation, Huitzil asked Pixcatl to maintain it, as she was unsure of how to care for it.
Wearing navy blue T-shirts with the Pixcatl logo, Pineda and Palacios Díaz cleared debris from the roof so the system would only collect fresh rain.
“We also put a little soap and chlorine to clean the pipes,” said Palacios Díaz as he swept the liquid down a connecting pipe that leads to the collection system.
After climbing down from the roof, they joined the other members of the cooperative in a courtyard to look at the giant 2,500-litre water tank, enough to meet Huitzil’s needs for several months when full. The colossal container was almost as tall as Palacios Díaz. Another member of the cooperative cleaned a filter, removing leaves and dirt.
Finally, Palacios Díaz added a couple of chlorine tablets to clean and disinfect the water. The frequency of the entire maintenance process depends on several factors, including how much water is in the tank, how much has been used, and whether it has rained.
Huitzil said that before the collection system was installed, she suffered from water shortages and rationing. The publicly available water was always dirty and “dark as chocolate.” She used the water left over from washing clothes to clean the yard. Sometimes, when dirty water came in, she would put it in buckets and wait for the dirt to settle to the bottom, and use the cleanest water to bathe.
The system has transformed his daily use of water, and he no longer has to think twice about whether it is safe. First, the system uses six filters, and another three if the water is for drinking.
“It is very good, it is very good,” said Huitzil. “And let me tell you that it is very clean for clothes. Well, if you can get it cleaner you can drink it: the water is sweet and very good.”
Home to more than 1.8 million residents, Iztapalapa has been one of the main beneficiaries of Mexico City’s water collection system program. But after two years, the city stopped giving away free systems after many residents — who were struggling financially and sometimes found it difficult to maintain the systems — sold their parts.
Palacios Díaz reported that it should be easy to maintain them, but it is tedious, and added that unfortunately they are in a situation where they not only have environmental problems, but also economic ones.
Loreta Castro Reguera, a professor of architecture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, focuses much of her work on water and urban design. She said rainwater harvesting is an excellent solution because during the country’s rainy season residents can use rainwater instead of water from the Cutzamala system, a reservoir that provides water to Mexico City and the State of Mexico.
Palacios Díaz dreams of having rainwater systems in markets, shopping malls and other community spaces. The cooperative also works on custom designs for its clients’ needs, whether for a low-cost system or to meet increased water demand.
As women, she and the other members of Pixcatl want to be an example for those who want to get involved in water collection.
“I think it’s really nice that we can inspire girls and see that women can enter into another context,” said Abigail López Durán, another member. “We can also use tools without fear of hurting ourselves.”
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