Drought + Deluge: An Amphibious Neighborhood for Mexico City's Urban Poor

Abstract

Mexico City’s water cycle is broken. Rain is falling but doesn’t make it underground to the aquifer of potable water, causing severe floods. Evapotranspiration is accelerated before water can be used by people, causing severe droughts and subsidence. The city is in a state of paradox of excess and lack of water, worsening the effects of climate change. The issue of equity becomes stronger in this imbalance, where the wealthy have the best access at the center of the city, while the poorer communities have the least at the periphery. If this continues, the aquifer will dry up, the city will continue to sink, and Mexico City will have no means of potable water. In order to mitigate these series of issues, the water cycle must be healed at the large scale and the small scale. At the large scale, rain must be able to infiltrate the ground to replenish the aquifer and prevent further subsidence. At the small scale, localized means of collecting water must be used to lessen dependence on extraction from the aquifer for potable water, and to lessen issues of heat island effect. The position of this thesis is to leverage the poorer communities at the periphery of the city to act as precedents in city-wide efforts for water infiltration, as well as community level water collection and reuse.