Advancing United States-Mexico Binational Sustainability Partnerships (2021) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix D: Characteristics of the Binational Region
Appendix D: Characteristics of the Binational Region
Pages 93-134
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and 62.5 miles north to south of the international boundary.1 Despite containing several economic asymmetries, this region, home to approximately 15 million people, 1 As defined by the La Paz Agreement U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS]
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, in brief, but high-intensity heavy-rain events. However, there is significant inter-annual and multidecadal variability in precipitation patterns, which adds complexity to managing the region's scarce water resources (Giner et al., 2019; Wilder et al., 2013)
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, has yielded projects that have improved basic infrastructure, including improved access to drinking water, treatment of wastewater flows, and improved management of air quality, and solid waste (Giner et al., 2019)
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, as well as migrants residing in temporary shelters or provisional encampments under the Migrant Protection Protocols.4 According to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática (INEGI) , the floating population in 2015 accounted for a significant fraction of the population in several border urban centers: 33 percent in Nuevo Laredo, 23 percent in Tijuana, and 27 percent in Nogales (Peña Muñoz, 2018, p.
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. Total vehicular movement across the U.S.–Mexico border neared 530 million in 2019.
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Border Health Commission Strategic Plan, while binational groups, such as the Border Health Consortium of California, have focused on public health in the border region. The latter consortium meets frequently to explore opportunities for collaboration between California and Baja California.
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. Four areas of protected land span the border: the Sonoran desert, Sky Islands, Big Bend, and the lower Rio Grande (Peters et al., 2018)
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The Colorado River and the Rio Grande (known as Rio Bravo in Mexico) are the two central river systems shared by Mexico and the United States, although the Tijuana River, New River, and multiple shared aquifers also cross the border (GNEB, 2014)
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Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation (2013) , "The Colorado River and its tributaries provide water to nearly 40 million people for municipal use, supply water to irrigate nearly 5.5 million acres of land, and is the lifeblood for at least 22 federally recognized tribes, 7 National Wildlife Refuges, 4 National Recreation Areas, and 11 National Parks." The Tijuana River watershed drains 1,750 square miles (4,532 square kilometers)
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. Climate change is also exacerbating the declining quality and overall depletion of aquifers because the decrease in surface water caused by warming is both increasing the demand for groundwater resources and reducing the recharge rate (Wilder et al., 2010)
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. The implementation in 1994 of NAFTA drove a great deal of population growth, sprawling urbanization, and industrialization, mostly in Mexico, as agriculture and industry shifted south from the United States.
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In Mexico as a whole, 57 percent of the population lacked access to safely managed drinking water services7 and 50 percent lacked access to safely managed sanitation services overall in 2017.8 The colonias are particularly susceptible to water insecurity, as their populations are generally poor, marginalized, and often lack the critical infrastructure to deliver reliable water and sanitation services (Schur, 2017)
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. Poor water quality is a major challenge to the provision of safe drinking water along the border.
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. Some of these water quality issues associated with the delivery of surface water from one side of the border to the other are managed through minutes to the 1944 U.S.–Mexico Water Treaty (Sanchez and Eckstein, 2020)
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While the Yuma Desalting Plant was built to reduce the salinity of water delivered from the United States into Mexico, this facility has rarely operated due to high operational costs and surplus flows of the Colorado River since its completion in 1992.9 In 2012, the International Boundary and Water Commission entered an agreement to explore the feasibility of binational desalination for two prospective seawater desalination sites in Rosarito, Baja California, and Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, on the Sea of Cortes, which would export water to San Diego and Arizona, respectively (Wilder et al., 2016)
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. Desalination has been touted as a "drought-proof" approach to supplying water, increasing the volumes of high-quality water and thereby improving water security and protecting water quality (Wilder et al., 2016)
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Focusing only on export agriculture, the border states make an even greater contribution, making up 75 percent of domestic production and comprising 65 percent of the total area in the country devoted to export culture. This concentration is centralized in Baja California and Sonora; these two Mexican states comprise 64.6 percent of exports, and 74.3 percent of its value (SIAP, 2018b)
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Despite the environmental provisions in the trade agreement, this expansion in agricultural production has resulted in the overdraft and salinification of the region's groundwater aquifers, because it has put more pressure on limited surface water resources. Furthermore, agricultural production in the United States decreased during the same period, as markets shifted to the Mexican side, which brought agricultural water usage reductions to the former at the expense of increasing the water usage for land south of the border (Bohn et al., 2018)
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. Water quality issues spurred by these polluted streams of agricultural runoff have been so severe that they have generated "dead zones" at the mouths of border rivers, affecting populations of aquatic species and the people who depend on them.
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. Agricultural burning, pesticides, and water scarcity have been addressed repeatedly in the binational programs agendas coordinated by the EPA and SEMARNAT, Mexico's environmental agency.
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. Thus, areas where the majority of poor farmers and cattle owners share these communal lands are particularly vulnerable to water scarcity (Hruska, 2020)
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. The mining industry has placed increasing priority on environmental sustainability and social responsibility.
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. In terms of partnerships, the abundant renewable energy resources in the binational region present large opportunities for collaboration between the two countries.
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. Nuclear and renewable energy represented 8 percent and 11 percent of primary energy consumption, respectively (EIA, 2020b)
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. The growth of the hydraulic fracturing industry has also triggered water quality concerns, such as gas migration into groundwater aquifers, accidental spills of toxic fracturing fluids, and the safe handling of wastewater produced during production (Vidic et al., 2013)
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. Despite successes, managing shared water resources is incredibly difficult in arid regions, and stressors -- such as climate change, the differences in the way that water is managed in each country, population growth, shifts in urbanization and industrialization patterns, and limited financial resources -- will continue to add pressure to the management of shared surface water and groundwater resources.
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For example, Arizona's 1980 Groundwater Management Act, managed by the state's Department of Water Resources, was implemented to protect groundwater aquifers from overdraft through such provisions as prohibiting irrigated agriculture on new land, while Arizona's Department of Environmental
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. Subsequent binational negotiations between members of the International Boundary and Water Commission from the United States and Mexico led to the 2009 signing of the "Joint Report of the Principal Engineers Regarding the Joint Cooperative Process United States-Mexico for the Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program," which provided a framework for the use and joint study of shared aquifers.19 Over time, variable and declining precipitation patterns, along with rising competition for water, have decreased the amount of surface water available for agriculture.
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Agriculture in the United States has been less vulnerable to shocks, such as drought, due to technological interventions, including more efficient irrigation. However, pumped groundwater for irrigation is typically more expensive than surface water deliveries and still tends to be a limiting factor as to whether or not farmers can continue to operate (Vásquez-León et al., 2002)
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In 2002, Mexico became a net importer of natural gas, much of which is imported in the form of expensive liquified natural gas, incentivizing methods to grow domestic production. Pemex commenced exploration of the Eagle Ford shale play (shared with Texas)
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, whose expansions have been characterized by sprawling urbanization and the development of formal and informal communities, have created anthropogenic shocks and stressors in the region. The lack of adequate infrastructure for essential needs such as basic drinking water and sanitation
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However, although the 1944 Water Treaty marked progress in binational surface water management, it largely ignored the protection of groundwater resources and water quality, which continue to be large challenges for both countries. Some existing binational initiatives have improved the planning, development, and implementation of cross-border environmental programs and infrastructure, and have resulted in increased access to drinking water, more effective management of wastewater flows, improved air quality, and better solid waste management.
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The vast renewable energy potential, in particular, could provide opportunities for binational grid expansion, which could facilitate larger penetrations of intermittent wind and solar generation resources to be integrated into a binational grid so that electricity could be traded more easily across borders. By diversifying and expanding the regional extent of the power grid, the challenges posed by the intermittencies of these variable renewable energy generators could be mitigated, since a large regional grid would be less vulnerable to local lapses in wind or solar resource availability.
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FINDING 7: Water is one of the most consequential resources in the binational region. The 1944 Water Treaty guided surface water man agement, but groundwater management and water quality continue to be issues in both countries.
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International Journal of Water Resources Development, 16(4)
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El Colegio de la Frontera Norte: Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales. Instituto Nacional de Ecología: Consorcio de Investigación y Política Ambiental del Suroeste.
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. Promoting green infrastructure in Mexico's northern border: The Border Environment Cooperation Commission's experience and lessons learned.
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. Increased stray gas abundance in a subset of drinking water wells near Marcellus shale gas extraction.
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. Clean energy and water: Assessment of Mexico for improved water services and renewable energy.
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A comparative study of household water security within a transboundary aquifer along the U.S.-Mexico border. Journal of Latin American Geography, 16(3)
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. Impact of shale gas development on regional water quality.
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. Adapting across boundaries: Climate change, social learning, and resilience in the U.S.-Mexico border region.
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