Delight.- While noting that it is increasingly difficult to comply with the international water treaty, the head of the International Boundary and Water Commission, José de Jesús Luevano Grado, said that to date there is a debt of 1,734 million cubic meters that has to be covered by the year 2025.
It was within the framework of the First International Congress for the Efficient Use of Water, where he explained that in the period from 1954 to 1991, the Conchos river basin provided up to 306,679 million cubic meters of water (Mm3), which is equivalent to 53.59 percent of an average delivery of 572,215 mm3, while in the period from 1992 to 2022 it only contributed 147,555 mm3 of an annual average of 364,826, the equivalent of 40.45 percent of the six basins included in the treaty.
“It is getting more and more complicated because there is less water availability and greater demand, so we have to reduce demand with more efficient irrigation systems, with modernization, crop modification,” explained Luévano Grado.
“Everyone is already seeing it, but we are trying to enter into a more intense negotiation and discussion scheme with all users to move forward in this regard,” he continued, adding that the minimum must be met, to avoid that in the end of the cycle there is a large shortage.
Likewise, he added that it is important to understand the needs of users to ensure them without affecting them and without affecting the treaty, “it is what we have to advance, sow the same or more but with less water, that is where we have to advance.”
He also highlighted the importance of reforestation in the upper basin to be able to harvest the necessary water to supply the basins.
In his presentation, he reported that from October 25, 2020 to March 11, 2021, 415 thousand mm3 have been covered, so there is a shortage of 543 million of the more than 960 mm3 that should be available to date, highlighting that 1,743 mm3 are missing to cover the total volume assigned for this 2020-2025 cycle.
