This article analyzes misguided hydraulic policies and proposes sustainable human and environmental
management by Indigenous people and woman. Since 1950, engineers have pumped water from
neighboring states up to 1,100 m into the Megalopolis of Central Mexico (MCM), drilling through
mountains and discharging rain and toxic wastewater from an endorheic basin into a nearby arid
state. High energy costs, air pollution, sewage flooding in marginal neighborhoods, depletion of rivers,
destruction of storage in adjacent states, and overexploitation of aquifers have resulted in increasing
water shortages for 32 million inhabitants, poor drinking water quality, and an annual subsidence of
40 cm, affecting infrastructure, buildings, and the metro. These destructive processes began with the
Spanish conquest, when they drained lakes in an endorheic basin to gain land for real estates. Today,
climate uncertainty, prolonged droughts, higher temperatures, erratic rainfall, flash floods, and flooding
in the densely populated MCM basin require alternative water policies. There is hope for sustainable
water policies in the hands of newly elected female authorities, involving citizens, Indigenous people,
business people and peasants in this semiarid region. Furthermore, climate change obliges the society
and the government to promote environmental security with resilience, including territorial planning,
the protection of mountain forests surrounding the MCM, local sanitation of wastewater to recharge the
groundwater table, and rainwater infiltration to recover overexploited aquifers. The conclusions mention
the Indigenous peoples who cared for the forest for thousands of years, until chaotic urbanization and
economic interests destroyed nature and created man-made shortages of water. Women are central to
water-saving techniques, harvesting rainfall, roofing gardens, and using gray water to irrigate gardens
and parks. Within their homes and in public, they have promoted a care economy with a sustainable
water culture and ecosystem recovery that allows them to collectively ensure safe water for a growing
population over the long term.
