The objective of this article is to report on the strategy of Manuel Frías, a renowned engineer from the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico (IPN), to improve and alleviate water scarcity Mexico City water using geothermal energy from the Popocatepetl volcano. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayMexico City, one of the largest cities in the world, is facing a serious water "crisis." Its troubled relationship with water dates back approximately 700 years. Legend has it that when the Aztecs were still nomads they were looking for a place to settle. The Gods would have shown them the right place. They found a special sign there in the middle of the lake, so they built their city there; on the lake. They achieved such a feat by creating these artificial floating islands called chinampas. They filled the mats with mud from the lake bed and attached them to the bottom with tree trunks that would later sprout into rooted trees. Apparently, a city made of floating islands was a beautiful site, even by modern architectural standards. When the Spanish conquistadors took power 200 years later, they built a new city on top, which has continued to grow over the years. The lakes dried up and everything was replaced by a large mass of concrete. Today, only in some southern neighborhoods of the city, some remnants of what the floating city once looked like still remain. Claudia Medina's ancestors worked the lands obtained from these chinampas in Xochimilco. “The water we had here, many years ago, was spring water. My grandparents said that when they were thirsty they simply drank the water from the canals, because the water was crystal clear and beautiful. But when the demand for water increased, all the springs were channeled through underground channels. And to prevent the canals from drying out, they supplied them with water from treatment plants in the city and surrounding areas. In theory, the quality of the treated water is good for agriculture. But an analysis should be done to verify if this is really the case,” says Medina, biologist and chinampa owner. After everything has dried, most of the city rests on the muddy soil of the lakebeds causing quite a few problems. First, when seismic waves enter the region, the soft sediments act as an amplifier, making earthquakes like those of September 19, 2017 even more devastating. Likewise, the city is sinking on soft ground, and this is also connected to water. Mexico City's water supply is exacerbated by overexploitation of the aquifer. It has been calculated that only 50% of the extracted water returns to the aquifer, which severely clogs the city soil causing the entire city to sink unevenly at the rate of 25 mm per month. Buildings buckle and water pipes break. For this reason, almost 40% of water is lost in leaks. So getting the dirty water out of the city is another feat of modern engineering, it has to be pumped through another long system of pumps. Both pumping and withdrawing water require enormous amounts of energy and a lot of money, yet there is still not enough water for the 21.2 million people who live in the valley. About 70% of the inhabitants of Mexico City receive tap water for a few hours a day, the others weekly. Take Xochimilco (Mexico City municipality) for example, people are lucky if they get water from the tap for a couple of hours a week. They rely on trucks that transport water from local wells to storage tanks. The tanks visibleoutside the houses in every section of the neighborhood. Others use animals for this task. Xochimilco resident Moises Martinez says his house isn't even connected to the water supply. This deficit in water availability in Mexico City, together with the complexity of its population and the diversity of hydraulic infrastructures, leads to an unequal distribution of water, leaving a poor population in a situation of exclusion, which aggravates its vulnerability to health risks. In some marginal areas of the city, per capita consumption is between 19 and 24 liters per day, during periods of more or less regular refueling by trucks. This consumption is reduced to a minimum of four liters per day in the rainy season, when road conditions hinder this service. In light of this dependence on the local aquifer and nearby basins, the city faces a paradox. The Mexico City basin is estimated to receive an estimated rainfall of 210 m3/s, the correct management of which would make it possible to satisfy the demand of the population and the various activities of the capital, as well as avoiding regular flooding. The National Water Commission of Mexico estimates that the average annual precipitation is approximately 7 billion m3, corresponding to 222 m3/s, of which 80% evaporates, 11% filters into the soil and 9% is runoff superficial. However, rainwater runoff is mixed with sewage, a situation exacerbated by the development of aquifer recharge zones. On top of this, water losses caused by poor hydraulic infrastructure conditions are more than a third of the supply. On the other hand, only 3% of wastewater is treated, which is not enough to even cover 5% of the city's water needs. At the beginning of the 20th century, 60% of the water supply came from surface water and the remainder from wells in the Valley of Mexico. Today only 2% is surface water, while 68% comes from the aquifer and 30% is supplied by the Cutzamala system, an exemplary feat of hydraulic engineering that transports water, from nearby river basins, over a distance of 127 km and pumped for a thousand meters uphill, like its gravity, towards the Valley of Mexico. Mexico City's impressive population growth in the 20th century was due to multiple causes. First, the concentration of economic activities in the country's capital attracted important flows of population, especially of rural origin, who were incorporated into the nascent and pungent or intense industrial activity that offered attractive wages, together with urban services suitable for an expanding city . In fact, education, medical and health services offered to the growing number of inhabitants, together with access to better quality food and housing, contributed to reducing the incidence of infectious diseases, which until a few decades earlier represented the main cause of death, thus decreasing the high mortality rates, especially among children. According to official projections from the National Population Council, Mexico City's population was estimated to reach 20 million by 2010. Previous estimates had projected that figure for 1995, indicating that Mexico City was on track to become the largest city on the planet; the decrease in fertility, but above all the decrease in immigration, caused a decline in these figures during the last decades of the 20th century. Remember: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Mexico City is considered one of the largest cities in the world and is home to 20% of Mexico's entire population, making Mexico City the most populous metropolitan area in the Western Hemisphere. There.