Sonora will lose 4% of its water reserves to dams by 2025. The largest dam in the state is at 16.7% of its total capacity in a context of extreme and exceptional drought.
The water crisis and stress in Mexico has worsened in recent years, and half of the country’s largest dams have less water, including those in Sonora, which have lost 4% of their reserves so far this year.
Data from the National Water Commission (Conagua) shows that on the last day of 2024, the dam system in Sonora, which includes 10 dams, was at 16.2% of its total catchment capacity.
Currently, on the 8th of April 2025, 12.1% of the water resources are stored, 4.1% more than at the beginning of the year and 0.5% more than at the same date in 2024.
This means that Sonora has 1042.2 cubic hectometres of water at its disposal, including for the agricultural sector, to which a significant part of the natural resource is allocated, not only from dams, but also from rivers and wells.
Although priority is given to the use of water for human consumption, according to Nicolás Pineda Pablos, a researcher at the Colegio de Sonora, agriculture absorbs around 87% of the liquid, and the main sources are the dams in the south of the state or in the Yaqui river basin.
He explained that one of the methods of use for the agricultural sector is irrigation with surface water, from reservoirs, canals or wells, especially from three reservoirs: Angostura, El Novillo and Oviáchic.
What is the status of the largest dams in Sonora?
The Conagua explained that of these three dams, the one that currently has the most water is the Álvaro Obregón, known as ‘Oviáchic’, which is the largest in terms of storage in the state, as it has 16.7% of its capacity, only 2.9% more than in the same period, but in 2024.
It is followed by the Plutarco Elías Calles or ‘El Novillo’ dam with 15.3% of its total capacity, 1.4% more than on 8 April 2024, and then the Lázaro Cárdenas or ‘La Angostura’ dam with 9% of its storage, losing 10% of what it had on the same date last year.
The lack of rain and the shortage of water caused by the drought have led to the abandonment of around 65% of the sown area in the Yaqui and Mayo valleys, according to the head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Water Resources, Fisheries and Aquaculture (Sagarhpa), Célida López Cárdenas.
A report by Quinto Elemento Lab in El Sol de México found that 113 of the 210 existing dams, which store more than 90 per cent of the country’s water, are below the average catchment they have maintained over the past 30 years.
Among them, the northwestern region of the republic was highlighted, where those of Sonora are located, beyond the one located in Hermosillo, the Abelardo L. Rodríguez, which has not exceeded 20% of the reservoir since 2015 and currently has 0%, as in the previous year.
This situation has become critical, so the three levels of government have begun implementing strategies to ensure the supply of natural resources in Sonora.
Among the measures are the construction of three dams in the basin of the Sonora River, with a federal investment of 7,500 million pesos, as well as the State Water Plan of Governor Alfonso Durazo, which includes the construction of 78 wells in different municipalities, and the CUIDA project of Mayor Antonio Astiazarán, which includes a new treatment plant exclusively for industry in Hermosillo.
