Mexico city is facing acute water crisis. A city with a population of 2.2 million people is very near to the point of zero water supply.

Unusually high temperatures and very less rain has brought the largest city in central America to the point of facing drought. Major parts of Mexico are facing severe droughts and experts see no respite as they foresee high temperature in the months of April and May. Rainy season still is too far away. Mexico city water crisis is here to stay and no immediate respite for the citizens can be seen, untill the authorities make water available at every neighbourhood.

The main cause of the present water crisis is said to be the 16th century strange phenomena started by the newly arrived Spanish people. They considered water as an obstruction to the growth and development of the area. Therefore they demolished old buildings and drained the surrounding water bodies. They saw “water as an enemy to overcome for the city to thrive,” said Jose Alfredo Ramirez, an architect and codirector of Groundlab, a design and policy research organization.

Citizens of Mexico city are facing huge challenges and some say that they are getting a thin trickle of water in their taps everyday, that too just for an hour, which is not sufficient to fill even one bucket of water. Many families reuse the already used water and use it to flush off the toilets. Several neighbourhoods have not seen a drop of water for weeks.

Some people had also blocked major roads as a mark of protest against the government for not doing enough to solve this problem. Acambay neighbourhood, just outside of Mexico city, saw protesters force opening the gates and smashing windows of an office of Mexico’s National Water Commission (Conagua), local media reported.

Elena Ramirez, a resident of Mexico city said,” the political leadership has been taking it lightly and refuse to accept the seriousness of the problem”. She said that people of her neighbourhood are anxiously waiting for rain to come.

The local authorities have put a ban on the pumping of water from aquifers. Some believe this is being done to restore the levels of the quickly depleting underground water table.

Conagua, National Water Commission of Mexico, had curtailed down water usage from Cutzamala water system. Cutzamala water system comprises of canals, tunnels and reservoirs.

The geographical setting of Mexico city is actually aiding the water crisis. The city is at an elevation of 7300 feet above sea level and mostly has porous soil. The soil being porous and soft is eroding quickly because of which the entire city is slowly sinking. Unprecedented urban construction, erratic el niño patern and climate change are also major contributors in the present water crisis.

“We’re extracting water at twice the speed that the aquifer replenishes. This is causing damages to infrastructure, impacts on the water system and ground subsidence,” Jorge Alberto Arriaga, the coordinator of the water network for the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told Spanish newspaper El Pais.

According to livescience.com, Roughly 60% of Mexico City’s water comes from an underground aquifer and the remainder is pumped uphill from outside the city. But the aquifer has been overused, causing the land to sink at a rate of around 20 inches (51 centimeters) per year since 1950.

The authorities are reported to have said that they will improve waste water management systems and are welcoming new ideas of conservation of water. The authorities have assured worried citizens that there will be no “day zero”. In a press conference on February 14, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that work was underway to address the water problems. Mexico City’s mayor, Martí Batres Guadarrama, said in a recent press conference that reports of day zero were “fake news” spread by political opponents.