Resumo

MORALES-NOVELO, Jorge A.  e  RODRIGUEZ-TAPIA, Lilia. Sustentabilidad de la huella hídrica en la cuenca del valle de México. Tecnol. cienc. agua [online]. 2020, vol.11, n.4, pp.58-100.  Epub 10-Jun-2024. ISSN 2007-2422.  https://doi.org/10.24850/j-tyca-2020-04-03.

This paper estimates the water footprint (fresh-water consumption) at Valley of Mexico´s Basin (CVM in Spanish). This region has the biggest population and economic activity of Mexico. The methodology incorporates virtual water to the engineering scheme based on quantifying extraction and water use, and which more accurately measures the stress faced by water resources due to the enormous water consumption in the basin. The estimated water footprint is 3 895.59 hm3 of annual fresh water in 2015, making evident the water requirements of the residents of the CVM. Hence, the footprint is equivalent to the average annual water catchment at the Falcón Dam (Tamaulipas, northern Mexico), which accounts for its enormous resource requirement. Supplying such a level of water consumption has required the creation of a complicated and expensive supply engineering and overexploitation of not only own but also and external water resources. More precisely, when 202 m3 of water are consumed in the CVM, 100 m3 are explained by renewable water and 102 m3 of non-renewable water. Of this last value, 39.3 m3 come from overexploited aquifers in the same basin; 32.8 m3 from the import of overexploited basins, and 30.4 m3 is virtual water imported via the foreign trade of the basin. Finally, this composition shows that half of the consumption is based on the predatory extraction of water resources. This is received in the sustainability index of 202%, which is recorded by the water footprint in the CVM and is a value that indicates its extreme fragility to maintain itself over time.

Palavras-chave : Virtual water; water sustainability; integral management; net water saving; input-output; virtual water multiplier.