Water Diversion in the Valley of Mexico Basin: An Environmental Transformation That Caused the Desiccation of Lake Texcoco

Abstract

Mexico’s basin is one of the most altered in the country, owing to the presence of the megalopolis of Mexico City. Lake Texcoco, which had the basin’s biggest extension, dried up almost completely. The basin’s evolution over time led in the formation of a megabasin in which water is transported from one source to another to serve the urban region and subsequently drained to prevent flooding. The major hydrotechnical works in Mexico Basin have been interpreted as a solution to the problem of flooding in Mexico City, but they were actually part of a much larger strategy of territorial appropriation by the Spanish colonists. The ecological imbalance that has resulted has sparked a variety of social issues. For the purpose of analyzing the environmental transformation of Lake Texcoco over the last 500 years, actors and processes that influenced specific moments in the country’s history were identified; these elements showed the inexorable relationship between the lake and Mexico City. Subsequently, they were grouped by periods with similar trends in terms of the way in which society relates to and appropriates the natural environment of the lake. It was found that the critical moment for the desiccation of Lake Texcoco occurred during the Spanish colonial historical period as part of the redesign of the city; from then on, the same environmental imaginary prevailed century after century, shaped by social and economic factors. This study contributes to the literature on how urbanization affects natural resources by making an original theoretical contribution through an analysis based on political ecology, and it adds to the literature on how people use the prevailing federal area of the lake.

A comparing vision of the lakes of the basin of Mexico: from the first physicochemical evaluation of Alexander von Humboldt to the current condition

“…The former Great Lake of Mexico was located within the BM (Figure 1) and was split into five lakes during the dry season, namely,: Texcoco, Zumpango, Xaltocan, Chalco, and Xochimilco (Berres, 2000;Montero-Rosado et al, 2022). Nowadays, only four lakes remain: Chalco, Texcoco (Nabor Carrillo reservoir, built in Frontiers in Environmental Science frontiersin.org 1983, covering a small area located where the great Texcoco Lake once was), Xochimilco, and Zumpango, all with major modifications (Figure 1).…”

“…These artificial drainages and urban growth, have caused drastic modifications in the basin and its lake systems (Alcántara and Escalante, 2005). As a result, neither the former lacustrine system nor the Nezahualcoyotl dike remains nowadays (Torres-Alves and Morales Nápoles, 2020;Montero-Rosado et al, 2022).…”

Historical Political Ecology in the Former Lake Texcoco: Hydrological Regulation

“…Throughout history, this area has been the site of numerous human interventions that have irreversibly altered the ecosystem [13]. A great civilization developed on one of Lake Texcoco's islands in pre-Hispanic times, creating complex hydraulic systems to separate freshwater from saltwater, meet the city's water demand, control lake levels, and move to the mainland.…”

“…However, it was during the colonial era that changes were made to the basin's hydrological functioning to drain Lake Texcoco in order to avoid flooding in the new Spanish settlement on the same island inhabited by the Mexica people [13]. With the expansion of the metropolitan area, residents continued to confront severe health issues and flooding in the lake region; therefore, efforts to drain Lake Texcoco continued for centuries.…”

The History of Agrarian Reforms in Indonesia: A Sociological Perspective

“…(2023). The History of Agrarian Reforms in Indonesia: A Sociological Perspective Meanwhile, latent conflicts/disputes have not been revealed; in practice social life, these conflicts/disputes do exist(Montero-Rosado et al, 2023). The achievement of Agrarian Reform, which is targeted at 9 million hectares, especially regarding the object of transmigration land legalization and the object of land redistribution in forest areas, has…”