Politics: Water—another crisis in the making
Mexico faces a water problem that the recent protests in Guadalajara at the beginning of October have merely brought to the surface. Three droughts in fifteen years and three supply crises in the country’s three largest cities, Monterrey in 2022, Mexico City in 2024 and Guadalajara in 2026, share one root: the structural neglect of the issue. Warning signs preceded each crisis, yet the response was always reactive, and in two of the three cases it was rain, not infrastructure, that ended the emergency. Behind this lie overexploited aquifers (286 of 653 without water availability), networks that lose between 40% and 50% of the water in Mexico City, and treatment plants that largely do not operate.
The General Water Law of December 2025 recentralizes control over concessions in Conagua and prioritizes domestic use, but its regulations and the harmonization of state laws remain pending. Meanwhile, Conagua’s budget has fallen 45% since its 2023 peak, to about 0.1% of GDP, and responsibilities remain split among three levels of government. This fragmentation blurs accountability: when a crisis erupts, officials blame one another, but when money is invested there is little political return, which encourages short-term thinking.
The cost is also economic. Industrial parks and business groups cite the lack of water certainty as a brake on investment, precisely in the water-intensive, USMCA-linked sectors and in the water-stressed states where nearshoring was concentrated and several industrial parks started to develop. Without sustained investment, loss reduction and a clearer allocation of responsibilities, new crises are likely in other states in the medium term.
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