RAINWATER HARVESTING IN MEXICO CITY: Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum has promised to install 100,000 rainwater harvesting systems on rooftops by the end of her six-year-tenure
Millions of people in Mexico City lack access to running water. Along with Cairo, Bangalore, Cape Town, and seven other megalopolises, Mexico City will run out of water by 2030. The irony is, water in the city abounds. Set on a mile-and-a-half-high basin and surrounded by mountains, the city — which used to be integrated with a system of lakes and rivers — receives more yearly rainfall than London, England. Today, most of the city’s water is collected from underground wells or pumped from hundreds of miles away through inefficient and costly infrastructure.