I

n the United States and parts

of Europe, groundwater contamination is recognized as a
major environmental problem. Similar attention has
yet to be paid to this issue in
many countries worldwide,
despite the fact that their
groundwater is or soon will be a
crucial resource. In Mexico, for example, very little information has
been published on the quality of
groundwater or the significance of
existing or Dotential
threats to it. The
goals of this paper
are, first, to summarize public knowledge regarding the
groundwater resource and potential sources of contamination in the
Mexico City area,
a n d , s e c o n d , to
make recommendations for actions to
improve the understanding and protection of the resource based on the
f i n d i n g s of p u b lished studies from
other parts of the
world.

-~

(2). The current water use in the

MCMA is approximately 60 m3/s
(3, 4 ) , and demand is increasing
(Figure 2). Approximately 45 m3/s,
or 75% of the total water used, are
drawn from an aquifer system that
underlies the lacustrine plain (4-8).
An additional 15 m3/s are pumped
from two distant basins (4).Because
water from such outside sources is
limited and expensive, proper management a n d protection of t h e
groundwater resource beneath the

MCMA is critical to the future of its

inhabitants.

The groundwater resource

As illustrated in Figures 3(a)and 4,
three important zones can be distinguished in the Basin of Mexico: the
lacustrine, the transition, and the
mountainous (9-23). The mountainous area, the product of volcanic activity, directs water from precipitation toward the central part of the
Basin, either in surface runoff or in
subsurface flows.
1 The lacustrine clay
deposits are presedt
in upper and lower
formations, 30 to
70 m thick, and are
divided by a hard
layer (Capa Dura)
composed predominantly of silt and
sand (20). The clay
layer is considered
an aquitard because
it is considerably
less permeable than
the Capa Dura or
underlying sediments.
The area between
the lacustrine clays
and the mountains
is k n o w n as t h e
transition zone. The
boundary between
the lacustrine and
the transition zones
is generally defined
as the edge of the
t h i c k u p p e r clay
formation. In much
of t h e t r a n s i t i o n
zone, clays, if present at all, are interbedded with silts
and sands. In areas
close to the volcanoes, the transition
zone is comprised
of fiactured basalts. In general, the
surficial media in thetransition
zone have a relatively high permeability as compared to that of the
lacustrine clays. Thus, the majority of the recharge of the aquifers
occurs through
- the transition zone

POTENTIAL FOR

G ROUNDWATE R

CONTAMINAT10N

The metropolitan
area
Mexico City is located i n an originally closed hydrologic basin, which
was opened artificially i n the late
1700s. Figure 1 depicts the Basin of
Mexico, which encompasses the Distrito Federal and
Darts of several states
iMexico, Hidalgo,
Tlaxcala, and F'uebla). Before the rise
of the Aztec Empire (100 A.D.), a
series of lakes covered approximately 1500 km2 in the Basin. Now
a highly urbanized area, hereafter
called the Mexico City Metropolitan
Area (MCMA), covers much of the
lacustrine (lake-related) sediments
and parts of the surrounding mountains.
As shown in Figure 2,the population of the MCMA approached 20
million in 1990 (I) and is predicted
to reach 25 million by the year 2000
794 Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 27, No. 5, 1993

MARISA MAZARI
Universidad Nacional Aut6noma
de M6xico
Mexico City, Mexico

D 0U G L A S M M A C K A Y
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

f
9.~~,
101.
~~.

The main aquifers in the Basin of

Mexico are composed of alluvial
and volcanic material ranging in
thickness from 100 to 500 m (20,
23). The aquifers were subject to artesian pressure in the past, with

0013-936W93/0927-79404.00/0 0 1993 American Chemical Society