Mexico’s Water Crisis through the Lens of Schrodinger's Cat

It's a sweltering afternoon in Mexico City, and as you're stepping out of your front door, clouds begin to gather. Not just the casual puffs of white but the heavy, slate-grey monstrosities that make you wonder whether Noah should start looking for timber. Torrential rain falls like it's got a grudge against the pavement. And yet, despite this near-monsoon, you’re living in a water crisis. It’s a paradox straight out of a science fiction novel—or, as physicist Norma Elizabeth Olvera Fuentes would describe it, a real-life case of Schrödinger’s cat. The rain falls and fills the streets, but the drought still persists.

Yes, my friends, we’re in Mexico, a land where rain pours generously, but the taps run dry. It's a dilemma that seems absurd on the surface but reveals the harsh reality of the country's water management system—spoiler alert: it's broken. It's almost like a person standing in the ocean, dying of thirst because they can’t drink the salt water around them.

The water crisis in Mexico is both severe and puzzling. It’s not simply a case of too little water; rather, it’s about a system that stubbornly refuses to work the way it should. And who better to explain this baffling situation than the brainy folks at the UNAM Institute of Engineering? According to postdoctoral researcher Norma Elizabeth Olvera Fuentes, the answer is frustratingly simple: "inadequate planning."

The Numbers

Mexico City, home to 22.3 million people, is a thirsty beast. In fact, it’s the second most populated city in Latin America, only slightly behind São Paulo in Brazil, which houses another 22.6 million parched souls. Every single day, this colossal urban giant guzzles 61 cubic meters of water per second. To give you some context, that’s enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool every eight minutes. Over the course of a single day, that translates to 5.27 million cubic meters of water—enough to drown a decent-sized island nation, or at least their rugby team.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: where on earth does all this water come from? Well, this is where things start getting a bit hairy. Around 66.3% of it comes from local aquifers. These are like giant underground sponges that soak up rainwater over centuries—until you suck them dry, of course, which is precisely what Mexico City has been doing. Another 25.5% of its water comes from the Cutzamala System, a network of dams and reservoirs, and the rest trickles in from the Lerma System (6.3%) and the Madín dam (1.8%).

The supply of this life-giving liquid is now less reliable than a politician's promise. Take the Cutzamala System, for instance. As of late 2023, its delivery rate dropped to 40% of what it used to provide just months earlier. Blame it on a drought that overstayed its welcome like an awkward dinner guest. This slashing of water supply has left nearly 14 million people scrambling for solutions.

You might wonder how Mexico City ended up in this soggy-yet-parched predicament. The answer lies not in the sky but in a series of unfortunate decisions. According to Olvera Fuentes, the root of the problem is an unforgivable lack of planning. Mexico has been living off rainwater, but instead of harvesting and storing it wisely, it's been allowed to wash away like so many missed opportunities.

And it’s not just poor storage. Mexico’s water consumption patterns resemble a teenager with no concept of a budget—use it now, worry later. Instead of promoting a rational, efficient use of water, the system all but encourages waste. Couple this with inefficient public policies, and you have a disaster of biblical proportions.

Not only is Mexico City short on water, but the water it does have is often of questionable quality. Add contamination to the mix, and you’ve got a perfect recipe for public health nightmares, agricultural disruptions, ecosystem collapse, and general economic misery.

The North

If you think Mexico City’s situation is bad, take a peek up north, where the drought has been raging since before mid-2024. According to Mexico’s National Water Commission, regions in the north are so dry that you could practically hear the desert cracking. In fact, as of late September 2024, a staggering 51.3% of the Valley of Mexico faces extreme drought, while the rest contends with "moderate" (33.9%) or “exceptional” (14.7%) levels of drought.

This has translated into the lowest dam and reservoir levels ever recorded in some parts of the country. It’s as if the sky forgot how to cry. But, of course, nature isn’t entirely to blame here. Remember that infamous lack of planning? It’s rearing its ugly head once more, as water systems and distribution networks fail to manage what little rain does fall.

So, what’s the solution? How do you tackle a crisis where water exists but doesn't really exist? Olvera Fuentes suggests looking at the problem through a more complex lens, one borrowed from the world of quantum physics—Schrödinger’s cat. In the infamous thought experiment, the cat in the box is both alive and dead until you open the box and observe it. Similarly, Mexico’s water crisis is both solved and unsolved until the powers that be decide to actually address it.

Olvera Fuentes advocates for the use of fuzzy cognitive maps—an approach that allows us to model the complexities of water generation, distribution, and consumption. By understanding the intricate relationships between all these factors, we can start to unravel the mess. And let’s be clear, it is a mess. It’s not just about collecting more rainwater; it’s about changing consumption habits, implementing public policies that make sense, and—perhaps most importantly—acknowledging the urgency of the situation.

The Bigger Picture

It’s tempting to dismiss Mexico’s water woes as a regional issue, but it’s far from an isolated case. Many other cities around the world are teetering on the edge of their own water crises. From Cape Town to California, the world is waking up to the reality that water—once considered an infinite resource—is becoming a rare and valuable commodity.

The paradox of torrential rains and droughts isn’t just Mexico’s problem; it’s a global one. And if we don’t start thinking more like Olvera Fuentes and less like bureaucrats with their heads stuck in the sand, we’re all going to end up standing in our own oceans, dying of thirst.

So, next time you’re caught in a downpour, watching as the water gushes down the drain, just remember: somewhere not too far away, people are desperately praying for that very same rain to fill their empty taps.