This year Conagua will collect $24 billion; there is drought in 1,782 municipalities

Victor Ballinas

Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, April 25, 2022, p. 7

The director of the National Water Commission (Conagua), Germán Martínez Santoyo, informed the Senate that the collection for rights will be 24 billion pesos this year, almost a billion pesos more than in 2021, when 23 billion. From January to April, almost 6.2 billion pesos have been obtained.

During the work meeting held last Thursday with the Senate’s Water Resources Commission, in response to questions from legislators regarding the drought in the country, and specifically in Nuevo León, Mexico City and Baja California, among other entities, the official said that it is a problem that the country has to face in a cyclical manner, given that it has three main regions: the one with abundant rainfall (south-southeast), the semi-arid (central zone) and the arid ( North Zone).

To answer the questions of the senators, Martínez Santoyo presented the drought monitor in Mexico through four sheets in which it is highlighted, as of April 15, that there were 896 municipalities with drought, 886 abnormally dry and 681 that were not affected .

Regarding the entities that have the largest number of municipalities with drought, it was reported that Jalisco stands out, with 113; in Veracruz there are 75, while in Sonora there are 72, as well as 68 in Oaxaca.

When analyzing the percentage of municipalities, it is highlighted that Aguascalientes, Baja California, Baja California Sur and Sonora present drought in all of their municipalities; Durango, at 97 percent; Coahuila and Nuevo León, at 92 percent, and Nayarit at 95 percent, among others.

Given this, he explained that the country must be prepared to minimize the impact of both floods and drought. He stressed that these environmental situations have been aggravated by the increase in population and growing economic activity.

In the sheets it is highlighted that during the first fortnight of April there were rains above the average in the southeast of the country and the Yucatan peninsula due to the passage of cold fronts 39, 40, 41 and 42, for which this region is kept free from any drought conditions.

Likewise, in this fortnight there were two high pressure systems that promoted clear weather and high temperatures, a condition that favored the increase of areas with drought and highlighted that no region had improvement in terms of them.

The abnormally dry category increased in portions of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas, as well as in Guanajuato, Hidalgo, central Veracruz, Puebla, Mexico City, Tlaxcala, Oaxaca and Chiapas.

Besides, the increase in areas with moderate to severe drought continued in the northwest, center north, east and west. Regarding extreme and exceptional drought, they increased in the north and northeast of the country..

As of April 15, the area with moderate to exceptional drought was 53.25 percent on a national scale, 7.24 higher than what was quantified as of March 31 of the same year.

The official also specified that large regions of the country present some degree of drought, although its severity is differentiated and, in general terms, it is lower than the levels faced in previous years.

Finally, he said that the hurricane season begins on May 15.