Objective:

Analyze institutional trust through people's perception of the government institutions in charge of water management and attention to the contingency of the 2014 mining spill.

Methodology:

The study is framed in the context of the mining contamination of the Sonora River in 2014 and is based on semi-structured interviews to inhabitants of the Sonora River communities in 2016 and 2019.

Results:

The results reflect disagreement with the institutional performance, which is based on the precarious opening for communication of the institutions, the absence of consultation mechanisms for decision-making and a perception of unrelated interests between institutions and residents.

Limitations:

Within the limitations of this study, we find that, as it is a study on the inhabitants of the basin, little allows us to explain inside institutions and the reason for their behavior.

Conclusions:

We concluded there is both a precarious institutional trust and an institutional performance that is not conducive to the optimal exercise of governance.