Opportunities and Constraints for Resource Efficient Environmental Management in Rapidly Developing Urban Areas: The Example of Mexico City

This paper compares two contrasting approaches to natural resources management in Xochimilco, a peri-urban area of Mexico City. Both are realistic options that were based on local stakeholder consultations and trend analyses. One of the alternatives aims at maximizing conservation, reuse and recycling of resources; the other takes a conventional, centralized approach. Xochimilco is of strategic importance for Mexico City for recharge of the depleted aquifers supplying the city and features a traditional form of agriculture (chinampas). The environmental sectors considered are water supply, sanitation and wastewater, solid waste and agriculture. In the geographical area there has been a trend towards urbanization and few efforts have been made to increase reuse and recycling of resources. Both management alternatives have been complemented with a set of technologies suitable for the purpose of each one (local and on-site technologies for the conservation alternative, centralized technologies for the centralization scenario). The resource flows were calculated to quantify the potential for conservation, reuse and recycling under each scenario. The social impact and the costs of the proposed technologies were also assessed. The study shows that a management alternative aiming at conservation, reuse and recycling of resources is environmentally beneficial but may not necessarily be financially cheaper than a conventional management approach. Furthermore, decentralized technologies enabling resource recovery and reuse will have a greater impact on users and are less compatible with existing institutional systems. The study concludes with several policy recommendations on how to facilitate the implementation of decentralized technologies aiming at reuse and recycling of resources.