Luis Engel
As the climate crisis is getting worse every year, the average temperature per year is also increasing all around the planet. This leads to more extreme weather phenomena for example droughts or floods. The city of Victoria de Durango is one of the extremely affected cities by this change in climate, which increases the temperatures even more and causes longer droughts. This is reflected in a shortage in water, as the city’s main aquifer is being exploited over the last years. The deeper drilling for water has contributed to declining water levels at a rate of around 20-30 cm per year. Another risk for Durango’s citizens in relation to water supply is the exposure to fluoride in drinking water, indicating a significant risk to health problems. Of the 70 wells and 2 tanks examined in a study from 2023, 97% of them were found to exceed fluoride levels allowed by the regulations. Having recognized these two major problems referring to water supply this essay wants to explore potential solutions for the city of Durango in 2050.
First, I’m going to focus on the problem of contamination of Durango’s drinking water. There are several methods to clean the water in cities from fluoride, one being a reverse osmosis filtration, which uses a specialized membrane to remove impurities. Activated alumina filters could as be used in a big scale. This is an important step in guaranteeing a sustainable future for Durango’s citizens, as it will decrease risks to health problems. Also, clean tap water will simplify the lives of many people and lead to a reduction in plastic bottles because they won’t be used so often anymore.
Regarding, the lack of water due to droughts a good exemplary of how to cope with this problem is Israel's new water supply system. As it also has a natural shortage problem with water, it can be used as a good comparison. As the climate will get even hotter and dryer in Durango in the next years, a better reuse of water is getting more and more essential. For example, in Israel 94% of all the water is collected and treated while 87% of wastewater is reused in agriculture. This is also a good and realistic goal for Durango till 2050, as the state of Durango is doing a lot of agriculture. But the problem should also be solved from its roots, which means that the collection of water should be overthought. Especially, Durango’s rainy season from June to August, is a great opportunity for that. An idea is to install water collectors on houses to catch the rainfall. As most of the houses in the city are flat this would work even better, the water could then be stored in big tanks and cleaned with the process explained beforehand. This would already increase the usable water but is of course not the only decisions that helps coping this great problem. Looking at the green future of the city with more trees and green spaces such as parks, an efficient distribution system is necessary to develop, to decrease waste in precious water.
All in all, it can be said that the stated ideas and proposals are reasonable and realistic ones for a visional Durango in 2050. These will definitely increase the quality of life and lifetime of many people. On that note, let’s try to waste as little water as possible, however your own health should always be the first priority.
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