09/09/2026
Reporting by Tree Meinch for Yale Climate Connections examines how Baja California Sur, Mexico's driest state, is managing a tourism and real estate boom against a genuinely limited water supply.
Los Cabos has tripled its population since 2000 and now draws more than 4 million visitors a year. La Paz has gone from a small city to one of the fastest-growing urban areas in northwestern Mexico. That growth has sharply increased water demand, according to Enrique Troyo Diéguez, a water expert at the Center for Biological Research of the Northwest. A federal report found that in 2022, La Paz was extracting 39% more water annually than its aquifer could recharge.
Part of the problem is loss, not just demand. Studies of La Paz's aging water network found that nearly half the municipal water extracted never reaches consumers, lost underground to leaks and connection problems that can go unnoticed for months or years. Along the coast, rising seas and overpumping are also pushing saltwater into some aquifers, leaving well water usable for bathing but not for drinking or cooking.
Desalination is part of the conversation, but researchers caution it isn't a complete answer. It requires significant energy, produces brine waste that can harm marine ecosystems, and depends on power that hurricanes can knock out for days at a time.
The more hopeful thread in the reporting is a new effort at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur. María Z. Flores López, a hydrologist who directs the university's Integrated Water Management Program, has launched CITA, the Center for Innovation, Technology and Water, which uses smart meters to track real-time water use and find where it's being wasted. Flores López argues that if Baja California Sur, currently the country's most water-stressed state, can learn to manage water sustainably, it could become a model for the rest of Mexico.
