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Mexico’s risk runs through its borders, its basins and its coasts

Part I describes systems and their couplings. It assesses no authority and ranks no state.

7 min read2 figures2 tables13 notesNR-COUNTRY-MEX-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1Mexico’s risk runs through its borders, its basins and its coasts
    1. 1.1 The questions this part answers
    2. 1.2 The argument
    3. 1.3 Twenty couplings between five systems
    4. 1.4 Reinforcing loops
  4. 2Key findings
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Multi-year drought on a gas-reliant grid
  8. 6Readings from the other desks
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

1.1The questions this part answers

Key questions

  • Where is Mexico’s risk concentrated, and in which systems?
  • Which couplings carry shocks from one system to the next?
  • Which capabilities hold under compound stress, and which are only documented?
  • What must the 2027 programme measure first?

In this part

  • Narrative
  • Headline finding
  • Lead figure
  • Five system chapters
  • Twelve-domain reading
  • Sector screens
  • Dependency matrix
  • Risk objects
  • Capability ladder
  • Scenario
  • Three lenses
  • Portfolio

1.2The argument

Mexico is a large, young and increasingly urban country, with 130.9 million residents and a median age of 321. It is also a country whose systems are coupled to a neighbour. This baseline reads its exposure as three forces acting together: water that is scarce and shared, an energy system that leans on imported gas and fuels, and a coastline and highland exposed to storms and earthquakes.

The water layer shows the coupling most clearly. Water stress affected 64% of the continental area in 2025, where about 70% of the population lives3. Drought reached 76% of the territory at its 2024 peak and fell to 7.4% by early January 202614. Overexploited aquifers numbered 114 in 2023, up from 102 in 201113. On the border, the 2020–2025 treaty cycle closed with 0.88 of 1.75 million acre-feet delivered6.

The energy layer rests on gas and fuels. Primary energy production fell 27.9% between 2010 and 2024, imports of refined products reached 5,010 PJ, and dry gas supplied 64.2% of electricity4. Clean sources supplied 26% of electricity in 20255. The NDC sets a clean-generation target of 38.5% for 2030 and 43.3% for 20353.

The hazard layer is both coastal and seismic. Otis hit Acapulco as a category 5 storm in October 20237, and rain in October 2025 left 72 dead and 48 missing in four states17. A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck on 19 September 20179, and parts of Mexico City sink by up to 50 cm a year11.

The social layer sets who bears these shocks. Poverty fell to 29.6% in 2024, yet 34.2% of people lacked access to health services and 14.4% lacked access to nutritious food2. Housing is better connected than a decade ago: 97.6% of dwellings have piped water and 75.7% have internet1.

This edition therefore reads Mexico’s risk as a property of the couplings between these forces. The matrix, risk objects, capability ladder and scenario that follow ask the same two questions: where does a shock travel next, and who holds the capability to stop it?

Figure 1.1How is Mexico’s electricity generated? Share of generation by source, 2024 (%)

Dry gas supplied almost two thirds of generation in 2024. Wind and solar together supplied 12.5%4. In 2025 Ember puts solar and wind at 13% and fossil fuels at 74%5.

ItemBar, scaled to the largest valueValue
Dry gas64.2
Hydro7.7
Wind6.5
Solar6
Coal4.3
Nuclear3.8

Source: as cited in the note to this figure. Year 2024.

Figure ID FIG-COUNTRY-MEX-2026-BASELINE-01-003

7,359PJ

primary energy production, 20244

5,010PJ

refined products imported, 20244

45.7%

of final use is transport4

2050net zero

goal in the NDC3

1.3Twenty couplings between five systems

The Mexico matrix types the twenty couplings between the five core systems. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events; they set the starting graph that the Q1 2027 Foundry cut will test.

Figure 1.2Couplings between the five systems

Each line is one coupling from one system to another, drawn by the strength the edition assigns. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events.

  • Strong
  • Moderate
  • Weak

Source: this edition’s coupling matrix (Table 1.1); status Estimated.

Table 1.1Coupling matrix: from the row system to the column system
From, toWATENEFOOHLTBIO
WAT Water·MODERATE
hydropower · cooling		STRONG
irrigation · rain-fed yield		MODERATE
drinking water · sanitation		STRONG
flows · wetlands
ENE EnergySTRONG
pumping · treatment · desalination		·STRONG
fuel · irrigation pumping · cold chain		STRONG
facility power · cooling		MODERATE
land use · reservoirs
FOO FoodSTRONG
irrigation withdrawals		WEAK
biofuel feedstock		·STRONG
nutrition · food safety		STRONG
land conversion
HLT HealthWEAK
workforce		WEAK
workforce		MODERATE
labour · disease		·WEAK
residues
BIO BiodiversitySTRONG
regulation · recharge		MODERATE
fire on lines · biomass		STRONG
pollination · soils		MODERATE
zoonoses · smoke		·
Strength: strong, moderate or weak; a Nexus estimate (status Estimated) from cited evidence and analogue events. The scale is defined in Annex A.

Transmission paths

  1. 01

    CLI → WAT → FOO

    Drought cuts irrigation and rain-fed yield; 2.83 million hectares of crops were lost to drought in 2018–2023.

    Reported SIAP data in NDC3

  2. 02

    TRD → ENE → all

    Imported gas and fuels carry price and supply shocks into power, transport and industry.

    Reported 2024 balance4

  3. 03

    CLI → INF

    A category 5 landfall and heavy rain cut roads, power and homes.

    Reported Otis 20237 · October 202517

  4. 04

    SEI → INF

    An intraslab earthquake damages buildings in several states.

    Reported 2017910

  5. 05

    WAT → TRD

    Shortfalls in shared-river deliveries enter trade and tariff talks.

    Reported 20256

1.4Reinforcing loops

A shock entering either system of a loop can return amplified through the other.

Table 1.2Pairs of systems where both directions are rated strong
LoopFirst directionSecond direction
WAT and FOOWater to food: irrigation · rain-fed yieldFood to water: irrigation withdrawals
WAT and BIOWater to biodiversity: flows · wetlandsBiodiversity to water: regulation · recharge
FOO and BIOFood to biodiversity: land conversionBiodiversity to food: pollination · soils
A causal-loop reading of the matrix (Sterman, Business Dynamics, 2000): structural, from estimated strengths, not a measured feedback.

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 1Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (ed.), Encuesta Intercensal 2025: En 2025, en México residían 130.9 millones de personas. Comunicado de prensa 54/26. INEGI, Aguascalientes, 22 September 2026. Observation year: 2025.back
  2. 3Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (ed.), Actualización de la Contribución Determinada a nivel Nacional 3.0 de México. Submission to the UNFCCC, Mexico City, November 2025. Observation year: 2025 (preliminary 2024 inventory shares).back
  3. 14UnoTV and AFP (eds.), “Sequía retrocede a 7.4% tras máximo de 2024, el menor nivel en 6 años,” reporting the SMN drought monitor. UnoTV, Mexico City, 30 January 2026. Observation year: 2024 (peak), 2026 (January).back
  4. 13Expansión Política (ed.), “Acuíferos sobreexplotados en México y gestión del agua subterránea,” reporting Conagua data. Expansión, Mexico City, 25 January 2026. Observation year: 2023.back
  5. 6E. H. Humphreys, N. T. Carter and C. V. Stern, 1944 U.S.-Mexico Water Treaty: Issues in the 119th Congress. CRS Insight IF12976, Congressional Research Service, Washington DC, 6 March 2026. Observation year: 2025 (cycle end), 2026 (commitments).back
  6. 4Banco de México (ed.), “La matriz energética de México,” Recuadro 5, Reporte de Estabilidad Financiera, June 2026, pp. 127–131, using SENER, Balance Nacional de Energía 2024. Banxico, Mexico City, 10 June 2026. Observation year: 2024.back
  7. 5Ember (ed.), Mexico: electricity country profile, 2025 data. Ember, London, page updated 20 May 2026. Observation year: 2025.back
  8. 7National Hurricane Center (ed.), Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Otis (EP182023), 22–25 October 2023. NOAA, Miami, 2024. Observation year: 2023.back
  9. 17Por Esto (ed.), “Suman 72 muertos y 48 desaparecidos por lluvias en cinco estados,” reporting a federal government statement. Por Esto, Mérida, 17 October 2025. Observation year: 2025.back
  10. 9Servicio Sismológico Nacional (ed.), Reporte especial: Sismo del día 19 de septiembre de 2017, Puebla-Morelos (M 7.1). UNAM, Mexico City, 2017. Observation year: 2017.back
  11. 11E. Chaussard, E. Havazli, H. Fattahi, E. Cabral-Cano and D. Solano-Rojas, “Over a century of sinking in Mexico City: no hope for significant elevation and storage capacity recovery,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, vol. 126, no. 4, e2020JB020648, 2021. Observation year: 2021 (record from 1900).back
  12. 2Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (ed.), Pobreza multidimensional 2024. Comunicado de prensa 118/25. INEGI, Aguascalientes, 13 August 2025. Observation year: 2024.back
  13. 10Secretaría de Gobernación (ed.), Declaratorias de Emergencia Extraordinaria y de Desastre Natural por el sismo de magnitud 7.1 del 19 de septiembre de 2017. Diario Oficial de la Federación, Mexico City, 27–28 September 2017. Observation year: 2017.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 1: Mexico’s risk runs through its borders, its basins and its coasts. In Mexico Systems Risk and Resilience Report 2026: The State of Mexico’s Interdependent Systems (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-COUNTRY-MEX-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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Sector signature

The sectors behind Mexico.

A reading aid: the sectors the findings run through and how strongly they depend on each other.

Select corners · hover lines10 / 15 relations

Context

Coastal storm surge

Mangroves and dunes absorb the surge; where they are gone, ports, substations and water intakes take it.

W · E · I · F · H · B

Sectors
5 of 6
Relations
10 of 15
Coupling
0.64 share of total

Strongest relations in play

  • Energy → Infrastructure · power for transport and telecoms0.8
  • Water → Energy · cooling water and hydropower0.6
  • Water → Biodiversity · environmental flows0.6
  • Infrastructure → Water · pipes, dams and treatment works0.6
Teaching values for a typical city-region, not measurements for any place. Coupling is the summed strength of the relations in play, as a share of all fifteen.
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