More than 80% of the water available in the reservoirs of the state of Chihuahua has been lost. The ten main dams have only 18.79% of their capacity.
After several years of prolonged drought, illegal water extraction and growing pressure to comply with the 1944 water treaty with the United States, the state of Chihuahua is facing a water crisis. According to the National Water Commission (Conagua), the state’s ten main dams currently hold only 18.79% of their total storage capacity.
Currently, the water that all the dams in the state have is 719.15 cubic hectometres of water, which represents 18.79% of the total limit registered with Conagua, since what the dams could store at their capacity is 3,825.90 cubic hectometres of water, which is a little less than a fifth of what there was three years ago when the dams reached 100% of their capacity.
The latest monitoring of Mexico’s Principal Dams System confirms that the availability of surface water in Chihuahua continues to decline. This trend is exacerbated by the lack of significant rainfall in the region and high temperatures, which are already above 30 degrees Celsius, accelerating the evaporation process. With the arrival of summer, the situation is expected to worsen.
Currently, the main dams, such as La Boquilla in San Francisco de Conchos, Las Virgenes in Rosales, Tintero in Buenaventura and El Granero in Aldama, are at around 15% of their capacity, and as low as 9.5% in the case of El Tintero, which is one of the most affected by the low water availability.
The La Boquilla dam is the most important dam in the state of Chihuahua, with a capacity of 2,836,780 cubic metres of water, which represents 74.40% of the availability of all the surface water of the dams in the state, but it is currently at the lowest level in its history, with 14.8% of its capacity, that is, it currently holds 420,457 cubic metres of water.
In addition, the La Boquilla dam, located in the south-central region of the state, works to meet the agricultural cycle of the region, such as the municipalities of Camargo, Jiménez, Delicias, San Francisco de Conchos and all those close to it, as well as serving as a source of supply for human consumption and also for fishing in various places.
Experts in water management, such as Dr Kamel Athie Flores, warn that this scenario poses a risk to agricultural, industrial and domestic supplies. In addition, the shortage is complicating binational negotiations to comply with the 1944 treaty that requires Mexico to deliver a certain amount of water from the Rio Grande to the United States each year, a situation that has caused tensions between local farmers and federal authorities in the past.
