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Sustainable Urban Water ManagementTransboundary Region of Tijuana - San Diego
1) TitleWater Supply and Sanitation in the Transboundary Region of Tijuana
(Mexico) - San Diego (USA)
1a) General Information
The case study location is in the transboundary region of Tijuana-San
Diego. Tijuana is in the state of Baja California in Mexico and San
Diego is in the state of California in the United States of America. This
transboundary region is a binational metropolitan area with a wall
between the two cities. Following it is the case study location from a global perspective:
These two cities share many things but also has many differences. Related with water issues both
cities share the same natural environment but they have different institutional frameworks. Following
there is a table which shows general information about these two cities:
Element Tijuana (Mexico) San Diego (USA)
Population 1,670,365 inhabitants 1,368,061 inhabitants
GDP per capita $10,119 dollars $33,135 dollars
Urban percentage 99% 100%
Colorado River dependency 90% 85%
Shared Transboundary Waters Agreement
10% 90%
Agricultural Use of the Water of Colorado River
87% 80%
Figure 1: Statistics on Tijuana and San Diego
2) Introduction and background
The transboundary region of Tijuana-San Diego:The history of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) has its roots in the 1848
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Treaty of 1853. These treaties created the first
binational commissions to review the geographical limits and new infrastructure between Mexico
and United States of America. The Water Treaty of 1944 was the formal arrangement to share water
between the two countries, with this treaty the IBWC has the status of an international body and
consists of a United States Section and a Mexican Section and each Section is headed by a
commissioner, two principal engineers, a legal adviser and a secretary. The Treaty of 1944 has
three main objectives related with water supply and sanitation in the Colorado River. The first one is
the agreement of sharing water, there are allotted to Mexico a guaranteed annual quantity of 1.5
million acre-feet to be delivered. The second one is to give preferential attention to the solution of all
border sanitation problems. The third one is to agree binational infrastructure to manage water
flows. Otherwise, Tijuana and San Diego also share the South Bay International Wastewater
Treatment Plant (SBIWTP) which is located in San Diego, California. The construction was paid for
USA and Mexico has to pay for water treatment (IBWC, 2015).
Tijuana, Baja California, MexicoCurrently, Tijuana’s population uses the Colorado River as the main source of water supply. The
water from the Colorado River is transported by a 140 km aqueduct from Mexicali Valley to Tijuana
City. The most expensive stretch for this aqueduct is to overcome one kilometer height for about 60
kilometers length at Sierra La Rumorosa in which case is necessary to use energy to overcome the
gravity (CESPT, 2015b). The lack of water has been one of the biggest urban problems because of
the rapid growth, between 1930 and 1960 (30 years) the population grew almost 15 times, from
11,271 to 165,417 inhabitants (CESPT, 2015c).
The Comision Estatal de Servicios Publicos de Tijuana (CESPT) in English Special Commission for
Public Services of Tijuana is a state-provincial commission and it has a hierarchical organizational
structure composed as follows:
The State Governor or his representative
The Minister of Infrastructure and Urban Development of the State
The Minister of Planning and Finance of the State
The Major of Tijuana
The Major of Playas de Rosarito
Two representatives of the private sector and one representative of the social sector
This administrative council designs a director to manage the water organization in Tijuana in which
organization has a hierarchical design and it has a decentralization strategy with eight territorial
divisions in order to reduce the complexity of the big city and to focus attention in more concrete
areas. Otherwise, in the last months Tijuana is facing a serious drought as shown in Figure 1. The
map is from the National Water Commision (CONAGUA) in Mexico and the red spot on the map is in
the metropolitan area of Tijuana. In this sense, Tijuana has an historical problem with lack of water
and in the recent months also has a extreme drought (CONAGUA, 2015).
Figure 1: Potential drought areas within Mexico (CONAGUA)
San Diego, California, United States of America:San Diego imports around 90% of its water from the California Aqueduct and from the Colorado
River Aqueduct. The San Diego region has the vulnerability to be negatively affected by shortages
and price increases (Courtney, 2009). The current situation has two sides. One side is related with
water supply and South California has a problem in the competition of water between different uses:
agricultural, urban and environmental. The other side is related with sanitation and South California
has to improve in cleaning up waste water and industrial discharges because these sanitation
problems are increasing the cost of drinking water treatment, harm to aqua systems and decreasing
of economic impact of agriculture (Hanak et. al., 2011).
Water organization in California is very peculiar because it has a structure of many decentralized
organizations which manage water issues with different stakeholders. Water utilities in California
could be organized as one of six general types (Strickland, 2015):
Cities
County Districts
Special Districts
Public Utilities
Mutual Water Companies
Mobile Home Parks
This administrative structure in California in the water sector has a hierarchical design into the
organizations and also it has many governance structure and processes by markets and by
networks using the plenty number of administrative water bodies at the national, state, county, city
and local level. Otherwise, in the last months San Diego as Tijuana are facing a serious drought as
seen in Figure 2. The largest drought severity on the map is in South California in which San Diego
is located (Rippey, 2015).
Figure 2: U.S Drought Monitor (US Department of Agriculture)
3) DescriptionThe big issue on this case study is to understand the different re-actions of Tijuana and San Diego
at very similar drought problem. The main governance processes in Tijuana to face the drought are:
Manager of City Water Authority: Tijuana is facing a drought and it is necessary to ask the
people to reduce water consumption. However, the city has enough water for at least 10
more years.
Bet for water desalination: plans point to build the biggest desalination plant in America with
enough capacity to provide water to Tijuana and even export to San Diego. The strategy is
focused on Public Private Partnerships in which private sector build the infrastructure in
exchange for managing the plants for 20 or 30 years.
Scholars: environmental damage for sea animals and negative effects in economic activities
related with the sea.
Regarding to the governance challenges to overcome the drought in Tijuana are:
It is necessary to develop organized watchdogs in the civil society to balance the different
stakes in water governance.
The strategy is to increase the water offer, however, the water officials do not put enough
attention on residual water treatment, reducing water consumption or to fix the water supply
infrastructure that spoils considerable amount of water.
The desalination plant could have environmental damage and possible negative effects in
the local economy.
Water in private management represents a serious challenge for equity and for water as a
human right. In Mexico, there is a culture of governmental dependency in some issues, one
of this is water. Some of Tijuana citizens do not have enough income to pay water bills but at
the same time there is no culture of water care.
The main governance processes in San Diego to face the drought are:
National Government: 190 million dollars to help California’s drought.
Governor: executive order to reduce consumption of water in California: save water (25%
reduction in potable urban water usage). No measure for agriculture that uses 80% of water
and produces the 2% of economy.
San Diego County District: San Diego County District is following the order but with some
resistance because San Diego residents in the last years had already reduced their
consumption and other counties in California did not do anything and the measure is the
same to all counties.
Citizens: losing trust because they have already reduced the water consumption and the
governor of California did not consider these previous actions whilst other California
residents did not do sacrifices and receive the same treat. Otherwise, some wealthy
residents are asking for pay more to maintain the same water consumption during the
drought.
Farmers: agriculture has significant multiplier effect on California’s economy and they have
century-old rights to use water.
The last actions: the shortage includes some farmers of the most critical region, prohibition of
underground water pumping.
Regarding to the governance challenges to overcome the drought in San Diego are”
The imposing of the executive order has caused problems in the local arrangements and it is
modifying the governance relationships between the stakeholders.
The state authority did not recognize the efforts to reduce the consumption and now the
governor and the water state authority have to establish the framework for the future.
With respect to the governance challenges as transboundary region Tijuana-San Diego are:
Environmental aspect in the basin: both cities are highly depended of the Colorado River and
the decision making is influenced by the immediate necessities for the stakeholders.
Sustainable cooperation: If the drought continues the next year (2016) Mexico will receive a
considerable decrease of water quantity and Tijuana has high dependency of Colorado
River. USA stored water for Mexican use because the 2010 earthquake damaged the
Mexican infrastructure. USA wants to invest in Mexican infrastructure rehabilitation in
exchange of water saved. South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant is located in
the US side (San Diego County). There are plans to build an International Desalination Plant
in the Mexican side (Metropolitan area of Tijuana-Rosarito).
4) Conclusion & Recommendations
What governance mode is more effective to face the drought challenges in an urban area? Is it
better the hierarchical mode of governance? Is it better to include stakeholders in the policy process
using modes as governance by markets and by networks?
I think that the answer is: it depends. It depends of the institutional framework and traditional
practices of each city. When you include many stakeholders is better for the inclusiveness and
engagement of the users in the water issues. When you use market strategies as increase the price
is better for reduce the consumption at any cost. When you govern by hierarchical structure is better
for standardize measures and to do a broader intervention contrary to might what happen with many
embedded jurisdictions.
5) References
Newspaper Articles:
Boxall, B. (2015). Gov. Brown's drought plan goes easy on agriculture consulted on:
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-83210310/
Fears D. (2015). Calif. City’s desalination push sparks debate over cost, environmental harm,
consulted on: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/california-citys-
desalination-push-sparks-debate-over-costs-coastal-impact/2015/07/08/8f0b2ede-1a84-
11e5-bd7f-4611a60dd8e5_story.html
Kuznia, R. (2015). Rich Californians balk at limits: ‘We’re not all equal when it comes to water’
consulted on: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rich-californians-youll-have-to-pry-
the-hoses-from-our-cold-dead-hands/2015/06/13/fac6f998-0e39-11e5-9726-
49d6fa26a8c6_story.html
Medina, J. (2015). California Cuts Farmers’ Share of Scant Water consulted on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/us/california-announces-restrictions-on-water-use-by-
farmers.html
Laws and Acts:
Governor of the State of California (2015), Executive Order B-29-15. Official documents consulted
on: gov.ca.gov/docs/4.1.15_Executive_Order.pdf
Minute 310 (2003). Emergency delivery of Colorado River water for use in Tijuana. Consulted on:
http://www.ibwc.state.gov/Treaties_Minutes/Minutes_ByProject.html
Minute 319 (2012). Cooperative measures to address the continued effects of the 2010 earthquake
in the Mexicali Valley. Consulted on:
http://www.ibwc.state.gov/Treaties_Minutes/Minutes_ByProject.html
Treaty between Mexico and United States of America (1944). Consulted on:
http://www.ibwc.state.gov/Treaties_Minutes/treaties.html
Websites:
Comisión Estatal de Servicios Públicos de Tijuana (2015a). Official documents consulted on:
http://www.cespt.gob.mx/TransLicConv/InformacionOficio.aspx
Comisión Estatal de Servicios Públicos de Tijuana (2015b). Official documents consulted on:
http://www.cespt.gob.mx/culturaagua/articulo_historiaagua1.html).
Comisión Estatal de Servicios Públicos de Tijuana (2015c). Official documents consulted on:
http://www.cespt.gob.mx/culturaagua/articulo_historiaacueductos.html
Comision Nacional del Agua (CONAGUA) (2015). Official documents consulted on:
www.conagua.gob.mx
Courtney, Shawn (2009). A Tale of Three Cities. New Water Infrastructure in Los Angeles, San
Francisco and San Diego. The POLIS Project on Ecological Governance, University of
Victoria.
Gobierno del Estado de Baja California (2015). Official documents consulted on:
www.copladebc.gob.mx
Government of California (2015). Official documents consulted on: http://ca.gov/drought/
Hanak Ellen, Lund Jay, Dinar Ariel, Gray Brian, Howitt Richard, Mount Jeffrey, Moyle Peter, and
Thompson Barton (2011). “Introduction” in Managing California’s Water: From Conflict to
Reconciliation, Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco.
International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) (2015). Official documents consulted on:
www.ibwc.gov
Rippey, B. (2015). United States Department of Agriculture, consulted on
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
San Diego County Water Authority (2015). Official documents of meetings consulted on:
http://www.sdcwa.org/meetings-and-documents
San Diego Integrated Water Management Plan (2013). Consulted on: http://sdirwmp.org/2013-irwm-
plan-update
South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant (2015). Official documents consulted on:
http://www.ibwc.state.gov/mission_operations/sbiwtp.html
Strickland, W. (2015). Private Water Law Blog, documents consulted on: http://privatewaterlaw.com/
United Nations (2010). Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 28 July 2010, 64 sixty
fourth session, item 48. Consulted on:
http://www.un.org/es/comun/docs/?symbol=A/RES/64/292&lang=E
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