Angelica Enkiso L.
Newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, February 8, 2023, p. 13
Drought ranges from abnormal to extreme in the country and affects about 82 percent of the national territory, including the Cutzmala system basin between the states of Mexico and Michoacán, which supplies a third of the water consumed by the Valley of Mexico, reports Done National Water Commission (Conagua).
The agency indicated that the average storage at the Kutzmala dams is 53.3 percent, and is 23.4 percent below the historical average and a 1.2 percent decrease in one week.
Villa Victoria Dam is at 44 per cent, while the average is 71 per cent; El Bosque ranked at 58.4, which is 4.2 percent below average, and Valle de Bravo at 55.2 percent, 31.4 percent below average.
Conagua reported that as of January 31, areas with drought in the Katjamala Basin increased as the moderate area reached 52.1 percent and the severe area reached 30.5 percent, compared to 8.8 percent two weeks earlier.
lack of rain
He said the Valley of Mexico ends January without rain and the country is 30.6 percent deficient in rainfall.
Drought monitoring indicated that as of January 31, the main areas with drought in the national region are located in the north, northeast, west, and center.
In the center of the country, from January 15 to 31, there was an increase in unusually dry areas and moderately dry areas in the states of Mexico, Morelos, Tlaxcala and Puebla, he said.
They also argued that there has been an increase in severe drought in local areas of Durango, Coahuila, Zacatecas, Tamaulipas, Jalisco, Michoacán, Guerrero and Oaxaca. In Michoacán and southern Hidalgo, areas of extreme drought occurred and slightly increased in Tamaulipas.
As of January 31, at the national level, the area under moderate to severe drought was 44.27 per cent, which was 8.94 per cent higher than the figure recorded on January 15 of the same year, and 37.63 per cent with abnormally dry conditions, according to the report.
During the weekly session of the Technical Committee for the Operation of the Hydraulic Works of Conagua, it was reported that there is a deficit of 30.6 percent with respect to the historical average for the period of rains from January to February 5.
Conagua reported that the levels of Mexico’s 210 main reservoirs (which together hold 92 percent of the liquid capacity of the country’s reservoirs) were on average at 63 percent of their storage as of February 6.
