The National Irrigation District Technification Program, known as “Mexico Becomes Technified,” launched by the federal government to reduce water use in agricultural activities, should prevent Lake Chapala from being affected by the new project.
The strategy launched by the Mexican government to advance the technification of irrigation districts, with the goal of making these agricultural production areas more efficient in using their allocated water, will be crucial to prevent Lake Chapala from being affected by the new project that will be implemented to provide water to the city of León, Guanajuato.
The planned construction by federal and Guanajuato authorities of an aqueduct to extract water from the Solís Dam and subsequently transport it to León and other municipalities in that state has raised concerns in Jalisco, particularly in the state government, about the risk of a reduction in the volume of water that feeds Lake Chapala.
Given the uncertainty surrounding the Solís Dam aqueduct in Jalisco, considering that Lake Chapala serves as a key source of water for the city of Guadalajara, the Mexican government maintains that there will be no negative impact on the lake basin, precisely because of the introduction of the irrigation district modernization program in the state of Guanajuato.
Federal authorities, therefore, are projecting that Guanajuato will reduce its water consumption for agricultural activities, as a result of the national irrigation district modernization strategy. This will result in savings that should offset the additional volume that will begin to be extracted from the Solís Dam for the city of León. All of this should result in maintaining the flow that subsequently reaches Lake Chapala unchanged.
On August 27, 2025, the governor of Jalisco, Pablo Lemus Navarro, made the following statements after meeting with Efraín Morales López, head of the National Water Commission, to express the concerns that the aqueduct was causing in the state:
“They gave us many explanations, above all, guaranteeing us that the quotas and allowances Jalisco has will not be violated; that is, they will comply with them, regardless of the water that will go to León. The way they will comply is by taking water from District 11 of Guanajuato, which they waste today, and they will invest in technology.”
A few days earlier, on August 20, 2025, Morales López presented at the presidential conference the progress of the “National Technology Program,” known as “Mexico becomes more technological,” as well as the usefulness of these actions in obtaining water for human consumption. The public official would explain it this way:
“It is always important to remember that a very important part of this action lies in the fact that 76 percent of the water we use in the country is used precisely for agriculture. The goal is unprecedented in the history of our country, which includes the modernization of more than 200,000 hectares. What are the objectives of this program? On the one hand, to produce more food with less water. And on the other, to recover approximately 2.8 billion cubic meters, which—as the President has mentioned in this space—represents the equivalent of three times the annual water supply for Mexico City.”
And she added: “I would also like to emphasize here that this is a program that is not only unprecedented in the country; it is unprecedented in the world; there is no modernization program linked to recovering water for human consumption. Therefore, this is a cutting-edge vision, a program in which Mexico is a global pioneer.”
Source: reporteindigo
