CEAG turns on alerts due to rain shortage; measures will be taken to reduce water consumption

Published June 23rd, 2022

The lack of rainfall in the state, maintains today 51 percent of the water catchment in Guanajuato’s dams, so that, if the amount of rainfall forecast for this year is not registered, it will be in the next three weeks that the State Water Commission will begin to take measures to reduce water consumption in the state and thus avoid shortages of this vital resource.

This was stated by Francisco Garcia Leon, head of the State Water Commission of Guanajuato (CEAG); he indicated that at this date it should have rained more than 100 millimeters, however, due to the scarcity of rainfall, only a little more than 10 millimeters have been registered.

“We have had an abnormally dry year, as you know, it is still not raining on a daily basis as it should be. By this time we should have more than 100 mm of rain, and we barely passed 10 mm; we are still having isolated rains,” he commented.

As a result of more than 40 cyclones that would enter the country, the State Water Commission had previously predicted a large amount of rain that would begin in June and continue until July, with which it was expected to recover the water levels in the dams.

Figures from the State Water Commission show that as of today the five most important dams in the state have an average water catchment of 51.5 percent; the Solís Dam located in the municipality of Acámbaro has a catchment of 65.5 percent, while the Purísima Dam located in the municipality of Guanajuato has 62.1 percent of storage.

It is followed by the Ignacio Allende dam located in the municipality of San Miguel de Allende, which has 54.6 percent storage; the Yuriria Lagoon has 37.9 percent storage; finally, the Tuxtepec dam has 28.4 percent storage as of June 2022.

The head of the State Water Commission pointed out that, at the state level, the average per capita water consumption is 160 liters, while at the national level it is 260 liters.

However, given that there has not been continuous rainfall in the entity, Francisco García León has stated that, although the forecast continues to be good, it is likely that torrential rains will occur in the state, which would represent a complicated situation.

“The concern is that if it rains, but it is going to be torrential, then what was falling in a month is going to be falling in fifteen days. That is the problem that we are going to have torrential rains,” he explained.

To this, he added that there will be a maximum period of two months for the rains to occur and also to measure the amount of water available, which, if it is quite low, will lead them to take measures starting in August in order to reduce water consumption and prevent droughts from occurring.

“We are asking all water systems to measure their water, to have piezometers, to know how deep their water table is. In such a way that if it drops suddenly we have to be analyzing that their water levels are decreasing, and that means that they have to lower the per capita volume of consumption,” he added.

It is worth remembering that it was precisely in May when the state already had 10 mm of rainfall, which was already considered quite low based on what was expected, since at that point the state should have had 45 mm, reaching up to 80 mm at the end of that month.

In this sense, he announced that measures continue to be taken; and, as an example of this, all municipalities should carry out the cleaning of rivers and streams to prevent torrential rains from causing floods.