Government Reports Say Mexico Facing Severe Drought Conditions Again This Year ThePoultrySite.com
go to original April 26, 2013

After 20 years of drought and little help from government, aquaduct further threatens Yaqui way of life. (AlJazeeraEnglish)

With Mexico facing severe drought conditions again this year, the federal government has announced stringent conservation measures to preserve already tight water supplies, particularly in a large area just south of the border with the US, writes Carlos Navarro of SourceMex.

Estimates released by the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT) and the Confederación Nacional Campesina (CNC) indicate reservoirs in northern Mexico have fallen to between 25 per cent and 30 per cent of capacity because of extremely low precipitation for an extended period.

The situation is most dire in the northern and central states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, and Nuevo León, but even some southern states like Oaxaca and Guerrero are facing drought conditions.

A report from Mexico’s national weather agency Servicio Meteorológico Nacional (SMN) indicated that roughly 43 per cent of Mexico was suffering from some degree of drought as of the end of February, although only 2 per cent was classified as extreme or exceptional. But the weather models do not project any improvements. Conditions have remained dry in critical areas during March and into April, and the SMN predicts that rainfall will be about 26 per cent below the historical averages for the month.

The western states of Baja California, Nayarit, and Sinaloa will be especially dry, said the SMN. The dry conditions thus far this season have affected a broad area of Mexico, including some states not affected by drought in the past, such as Tlaxcala, Morelos, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Campeche, and Chiapas.

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