Mexico : water shortages

Mexico City has a lot of water until it was drained in the 60s this Easter, 5 Million people went without water as the water levels in the reservoirs are very low.

The National Infrastructure plan identified in 2007 as a cornerstone of development in Mexico is designed to improve this situation . The NIP identifies over 300 infrastructure projects in multiple sectors with spending targeted at over $141 billion .

Lack of water for human and agriculture poses one of the biggest threats to development and one way is to add more water capacity ( one of the NIP Projects is to build a 650MGD Water plant in Mexico City ) another way is to improve farm productivity.

Maize, a staple diet for Mexicans is very wasteful in the consumption of water compared to corn grown in the US.The most efficient user of water in corn is the US , India at 2500 m3 is closer to Mexico with a 5x water footprint. In fact, if the water used in all the Cereals imported into USA were to be calculated a 7 Bil m3 of virtual water flows from the US to Mexico.


This virtual water is keeping pressure off the stressed water condition in Mexico.

Low Cost Potable Water

I follow the Earth Institute and came across the video clip covering the work JM Eagle did in Senegal , piping water to a village and freeing up time for the folk there, especially women.

One of the images in the video is of a water tower and it looks like the one in the picture on the right.
The equipment in the front in this picture ( from Thailand) is a system we have developed and deployed in many countries that are off the water grid.

Typically towns in the 5 000 to 20 000 range with potable water supply needs. This system has few moving parts, and is easy to operation , with very low maintenance .. We have installed these in St Lucia, Puerto Rico & Thailand.


Rough Costs of a 20 Gal / Day /head for this system works out to a range of 2 to 3 US $ per Year. No special skills, energy consumption is a fraction of a membrane system delivering comparable water quality.