Integrated Water Management in the Basin of Mexico: A Blueprint

ISBN-13: 9783838353241 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 220 str.

Jaime Carrera-Hernandez

Opis

The Basin of Mexico, where the Mexico City Metropolitan Zone (MCMZ) and its 20 million inhabitants are located, has had a two-sided approach towards water management, as it has struggled to drain the lakes that once covered this region while at the same time it started to transport in water from adjacent basins in the 1950s for water supply. In addition, the large amount of water extracted from the Basins aquifer have caused drawdown of the groundwater table and consequently, land subsidence which reaches 40 cm/yr in some areas. This work firts analyzes the existing water management policies in the Basin, and presents the development of a regional database called the Basin of Mexico Hydrogeological Database (BMHDB). This database was used to develop a daily soil water balance using different vegetation and soil types as well as the effect of topography on climatological variables and evapotranspiration used to estimate recharge to the Basins regional aquifer. Through the application of this model, it has been shown that the mountains that enclose the Basin of Mexico are the main recharge areas of the Basins regional aquifer.

O autorze

Jaime Carrera-Hernandez received a PhD from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, after which he did a postdoc at the University of Alberta; in addition, he was a Colosio fellow at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. His research interests are the impact of human activities on the hydrological cycle and integrated modeling.