A Cheap Technology to Solve Mexico's Water Woes? Martin LaMonica - Technology Review
go to original September 1, 2013

In Mexico City, nearly 1.3 million people live without running water. Enrique Lomnitz, founder of Isla Urbana, has developed a rain harvesting system to combat this problem. (storyhunterglobal)

“When I was at the Rhode Island School of Design, my friend and I worked on a project to develop sustainable housing for low-income sectors of Mexico City. We realized that access to water was getting worse, whereas telephones, pavement, security - all the other infrastructure - was improving. We became convinced that the city needed to develop an alternative way to get water.

About 70 percent of Mexico City’s water comes from the aquifer, and the water table drops something like a meter a year - it’s super stressed. The actual ground of the city sank more than 10 meters in the 20th century due to extraction of water. About 30 percent of the water is pumped 1,000 meters uphill from 150 kilometers or so away, which is just insane. They say it consumes as much electricity as the city of Puebla [which has 1.5 million people], and it takes up a major portion of the city’s budget. But by harvesting rainwater, you could achieve a massive systemic shift. Even with small cisterns, people could go for six months of the year just with rainwater, which is abundant during the rainy season.

Read more about Lomnitz, and 34 other innovators, at Technology Review

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