Assessing Infrastructure Decisions to Manage Water Resources in the Valle de México

Erik Porse (1)

1 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Groundwater supplies nearly seventy percent of the regional water supply in Mexico City. Past groundwater extraction in the central city caused subsidence of up to 40 feet in some areas. Today, while pumping in the center city has ceased, groundwater supplies come from areas surrounding Mexico City, which are themselves experiencing effects of groundwater exploitation. Managing groundwater resources to preserve aquifer quality and quantity in the Mexico City Basin must incorporate a variety of strategies, such as promoting infiltration, altering extraction rates, managing demand, and developing wastewater treatment and reuse options. Further, aquifer management decisions have both long-term and short-term planning components. This paper describes a framework for characterizing infrastructure decisions to meet both long-term planning needs and short-term requirements. Long-term decisions include capital-intensive options such as construction of infiltration basins and wastewater treatment facilities, while short-term actions manage demands based on unexpected hydrologic and use parameters. Both short-term and long-term decisions have inherent uncertainty. Such a framework can be used to assess groundwater management and water supply options in Mexico City given infrastructure decisions, water demand forecasts, climate variability, and urban sustainability initiatives. The framework informs planning and management models for the basin.

Mots clés: Groundwater; water; management; Mexico City; infrastructure

Domaines: Environnement et Société

Erik Porse. Assessing Infrastructure Decisions to Manage Water Resources in the Valle de México. 13th edition of the World Wide Workshop for Young Environmental Scientists (WWW-YES-2013) - Urban waters: resource or risks?, Jun 2013, Arcueil, France. ⟨hal-00843129⟩