00:00 It's that time again. There's no more water. So the donkey has to get to work.
00:06 In Mexico City, many don't have tap water and government supplies don't reach them.
00:12 The only thing they can do is get it themselves.
00:15 Nothing there. There's no water.
00:18 When wells are turned off or the pipes are drained, people have to go searching.
00:23 I hope we find water, because I don't have a single drop left. I live at the top of the hill.
00:30 What should we do? Now we have to look and see if there's water somewhere.
00:35 A quarter of Mexico City's 22 million residents regularly run out of water.
00:42 The groundwater level is sinking and more than a third of tap water is lost due to leaky pipes.
00:49 Plus it's poor quality. Those who can afford it buy bottled drinking water.
00:56 Many outlying neighborhoods rely on government water deliveries.
01:02 But sometimes residents have to wait days or even weeks until a water truck comes to their street.
01:11 Enrique Lomditz has a solution, and it's up on people's roofs.
01:17 He installs rainwater collection systems through a project called Isla Urbana.
01:24 When it rains, the water flows down through this small pipe.
01:29 From there it enters the system. It first flows through a filter and then into the tanks.
01:38 Today Enrique Lomditz is in the north of Mexico City, checking up on Rosa Soriana's system.
01:45 She's been collecting rainwater for some time.
01:48 Everything looks great.
01:53 Rosa Soriana uses the filtered rainwater for cooking, washing, flushing toilets, and, when chlorine is added, for drinking too.
02:04 How have things changed? How's it going with the water?
02:09 Things have changed a lot since we've had the collection system.
02:13 The water goes in here, it fills up very quickly, and you have to pump it into the system.
02:19 It has a capacity of one and a half tankers, so in the rainy season we don't need to order any water because all the tanks are full.
02:29 Since 2009, the NGO has installed more than 33,000 systems and provided clean water to over 600,000 people.
02:39 Residents can be self-sufficient for up to eight months of the year, and not just during the rainy season.
02:46 But at Isla Urbana they believe that collecting rainwater can also change people's awareness, enabling them to reconnect with Mother Nature.
02:58 We all know that Mexico City's water problem cannot be solved with a rainwater harvesting system alone.
03:06 That's not the point. The point is we need a better water culture that can help rebuild that link, that connection to water,
03:15 because we often don't even know where our water comes from.
03:21 During the rainy season, the city is regularly flooded because the ground can't absorb much water. This park is a perfect example.
03:31 The water that comes from the mountain flows through this grid, and then there are steps, not for people but for the water.
03:41 They serve to slow it down.
03:45 Architect Loreta Castro developed these terraces. Her vision is for a sponge city where the ground absorbs water that will end up in the groundwater.
03:59 The gravel is called tezonple, and it's something special.
04:05 It's a material from here, volcanic rock that is very porous.
04:10 In the terraces it ensures that the water seeps in quickly and is stored.
04:26 There's a three-meter deep trench here. Everything is designed so the water runs off and seeps in there.
04:34 Loreta Castro and her team redesign public spaces, and water is always at the center of their planning.
04:42 They get inspiration from all over the world, but also work with indigenous techniques,
04:48 such as those used by the Aztecs, who built Mexico City as a floating metropolis 700 years ago.
04:56 It's clear to us that every public space in this city must also be a place for water.
05:07 If the park in front of your house or the neighborhood square became a large cistern to collect rainwater,
05:13 or a place to treat wastewater, or just hold it back, then the city could function much better.
05:22 Good ideas and political support are needed so everyone in the megacity has access to water.
05:31 Because even if everything looks normal in the city center, experts predict that Mexico City's groundwater
05:38 could be completely used up in 30 to 50 years.
05:43 (gentle music)
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