Goodbye, Lake Zumpango

The Story of a Lake in Crisis

Jesus L. Monroy
Economist & Data Scientist

May, 2024

Zumpango Lake Dry

Overview

  • The Zumpango lake is technically a regulatory vessel, with a capacity of 100 million cubic meters of water and an approximate surface area of 1,853 hectares.

  • The main reason for the construction of this regulatory vessel was at the time to be able to provide water to the agricultural centers of the Zumpango-Nextlalpan-Teoloyucan region.

Important Events

  • In 2023, the Zumpango Lake stopped having water and is now almost entirely covered by crassipes water lily.
  • This site was a tourist attraction that provided employment to dozens of families in the region, who served restaurants, shops and boat services to tourists who came every weekend, but today everything is abandoned.
  • The more than 2 thousand hectares in which the lake extended are now easily traversable on foot, since the water level dropped so much in 2023 that it ended up drying up.
  • Between January and February 2024, large fires consumed dry grasslands and lilies, leaving poor air quality in the surrounding areas.

Zumpango Lake before drying

Resources

References

  • “Adiós a la Laguna de Zumpango; está seca desde hace un año” in La Jornada, (2024)

  • Lake Zumpango in Wikipedia, (2023)

Contact

Jesus L. Monroy
Economist & Data Scientist

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