Mexico’s annual GDP/person now stands at $16,463

 Updates to Geo-Mexico  Comments Off on Mexico’s annual GDP/person now stands at $16,463
Sep 292014
 

Recent World Bank figures reveal that Mexico’s GDP/person in 2013 reached $16,463 a year, an increase in GDP/person of 1.8% since 2012. (All figures in US dollars). Mexico’s 2013 GDP/capita is well above the Latin America and Caribbean average of $14,978.

The GDP figures are based on purchasing power parity (PPP) which overcomes gross distortions resulting from differences in exchange rates. For example, a haircut of the exact same quality might cost $15 in the USA, $5 in Mexico and $1 in China. Using the PPP approach, this same haircut would count as a $15 contribution to the GDP of each of the three countries.

Mexico’s GDP/person has grown at an average rate of 4.5%/year since 1991, according to the World Bank. Back in 1991, the GDP/person averaged $6,320.

Mexico’s GDP/person has risen quite sharply since 2008, when the comparable figure was $14,810, though its world rank (#80) is essentially unchanged. The figures suggest that economic growth has outstripped population growth over the past five years, making Mexicans better off (on average), and able to afford more goods and services, now than they were then.

Since 1991, Mexico’s GDP/person has declined in only three years:

  • 1994-1995 – decline of 10% due to world economic crisis
  • 2000-2001 – decline of 0.2%
  • 2008-2009 – decline of 2.2% due to world economic crisis

These figures suggest that Mexico’s economy has become more resilient when there is any slump in global markets.

Mexico hosts 2014 World Tourism Day

 Books and resources, Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on Mexico hosts 2014 World Tourism Day
Sep 272014
 

Today Mexico is hosting World Tourism Day, so this seems like a good time to review the state of Mexico’s tourism sector. The official celebrations are being held in the city of Guadalajara.

The decision by The World Tourism Organization that Mexico should host the 2014 World Tourism Day recognizes Mexico’s importance in world tourism. Mexico is the 13th most popular international destination in the world. In 2013, it welcomed 23.7 million international tourists, who spent 13.8 billion dollars in the country. World Tourism Day 2014 highlights tourism’s social, cultural, political and economic benefits, and its importance in community development.

Earlier this year, Mexico’s Tourism Secretariat published a detailed analysis of the Tourism Industry in Mexico in 2013.

The text of the magazine format publication (link above) is in Spanish, but it includes lots of graphs and maps showing tourism’s trends and patterns. The 21 pages of information cover topics from the origin and spending of tourists to cruise ship ports, hotel occupancy, and number of international flights. The publication offers a wide variety of data and an ideal basis for students who want to design and produce infographics about tourism.

And how is tourism doing in 2014?

So far, all the signs are positive. The number of international visitors for the first half of the year was up 19.6% to 14.2 million, compared to the 11.9 million recorded for the first six months of 2013. Spending in the first half of the year was up 17.6% to 8.435 billion dollars.

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Post and Fly Videos of Mexico

 Books and resources  Comments Off on Post and Fly Videos of Mexico
Sep 252014
 

A series of videos made by “Post and Fly Videos” provides an outstanding visual introduction to many of Mexico’s most photogenic sights. Some of the photography is truly stunning.

For a fun introduction, try this 4 minute video (turn your speakers on) which gives a quick tour of many parts of Mexico. (As yet, there are very few Post and Fly Videos of the Yucatan Peninsula, but I’m confident they will remedy this omission before too long!)

A list of the places shown in this 4 minute video is given below (with a few links to relevant Geo-Mexico posts), for those who like to know precisely where particular shots were taken.

Places in the video (in order of appearance):

Marina San José del Cabo, Baja California Sur
El Sidral, San Luis Potosí
Macroplaza Monterrey, Nuevo León
Las Pozas de Xilitla, San Luis Potosí
Tamtoc, San Luis Potosí
Las Estacas, Morelos
Peña del Aire, Hidalgo
El Naranjo, San Luis Potosí
Xochimilco, D.F.
Tamul, San Luis Potosí
Los Cabos, Baja California Sur
Ex Hacienda de Chautla, Puebla
Gran Cenote, Quintana Roo
El Salto, San Luis Potosí
Valle de Bravo, Estado de México
Los Cabos, Baja California Sur
Ex Hacienda de Santa María Regla, Hidalgo
Peña de Bernal, Querétaro
Acopilco, D.F.
Atlixco, Puebla
Kiosco Morisco, D.F.
López Mateos . Baja California Sur
Huasca, Hidalgo
Mantetzulel, San Luis Potosí
Metepec, Estado de México
Todos Santos, Baja California Sur
Tula, Hidalgo
Todos Santos, Baja California
Castillo de la Salud, San Luis Potosí
Holbox, Quintana Roo
Punta Allen, Quintana Roo
Muyil, Quintana Roo
Tepotzotlán, Estado de México
Parque Fundidora, Nuevo León
Santa Fe, D.F.
Balandra, Baja California Sur
Arcos del Sitio, Estado de México
Loreto, Baja California Sur
Tulum, Quintana Roo
Loreto, Baja California Sur
Tulum, Quintana Roo
Xochimilco, D.F.
Todos Santos, Baja California
Aktun Chen, Quintana Roo
Prismas Basálticos, Hidalgo
Marina San José del Cabo, Baja California Sur
Peña del Aire, Hidalgo
López Mateos . Baja California Sur

To see more Post and Fly Videos, explore their website, especially their “Explorando México” section.

Illegal pipeline connection causes oil spill in northern Mexico

 Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on Illegal pipeline connection causes oil spill in northern Mexico
Sep 222014
 

The illegal tapping of a Pemex oil pipeline in the northern state of Nuevo León caused an oil spill in August 2014 that contaminated a 6.5-kilometer-long stretch of the San Juan River.

According to Víctor Cabrera, state delegate for the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa), about 23 kilometers of channels (mostly irrigation channels) have been affected in total. Profepa advised residents to avoid using water from the places affected and not to consume local fish.

nuevo-leon-oil-spill-Hector Guerrero

Photo by Hector Guerrero

The illegal connection to the Madero-Cadereyta pipeline was first detected on 16 August 2014, and has been attributed to the criminal activities of organized crime. It allowed some 4000 barrels of crude oil to spill into the San Juan River.

The spill affected the agricultural communities of Mexiquito, La Fragua, Soledad Herrera, Santa Isabel, Hacienda Dolores, La Concepción and San Juan, home to approximately 6000 people.

The Nuevo León state governor Rodrigo Medina told reporters that an analysis carried out by water and drainage authorities and the National Water Commission (Conagua) had shown that the local aquifers had not been contaminated. The oil spill did not reach El Cuchillo Dam, located some 70 kilometers downstream from the spill, which is one of three main reservoirs supplying potable water to the Monterrey metropolitan area.

More than 500 workers from Pemex and other organizations have been employed to clean up the spill. Within two weeks, 90% of the oil spilled had been recovered and removed, according to a Pemex report. Officials expect the clean-up work on the river banks and in the irrigation ditches to take another two months to complete.

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Mexico’s shrimp farms tackle disease crisis

 Updates to Geo-Mexico  Comments Off on Mexico’s shrimp farms tackle disease crisis
Sep 202014
 

Mexico’s total shrimp production in 2007 was 178,000 tons. This total masks a significant trend in shrimping. The high-seas catch has declined since 1990 and less than a third of the total catch now comes from the 2100-vessel specialist shrimping fleet based in the port of Mazatlán. On the other hand, production of fish-farmed (“cultivated”) shrimp has risen sharply over the past 20 years and now accounts for almost 70% of total national production. In the past 24 months, fish-farmed shrimp have been hit by a serious disease, which has caused high mortality and a drop in production.

The main shrimp producing states are Sinaloa (520 shrimp farms; 35,000 hectares of shrimp ponds; 40% of cultivated shrimp production), Nayarit and Sonora (see map).

shrimp-map

Credit: Shrimp News International

Wild shrimp

Catches of wild shrimp have been in decline. Shrimp fishermen are worried about the overfishing of shrimp stocks in shallow coastal waters, allegedly due to clandestine fishing by non-authorized boats. Pollution of coastal waters from agricultural chemicals is also a major concern.  According to Adolfo Gracia Gasca, a researcher at UNAM’s Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología (ICMyL), only two species of wild shrimp are NOT overexploited: the brown shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico, and the brown shrimp in the Pacific.

Among the many wild shrimp populations that have collapsed are the white and pink shrimps of the Gulf of Mexico. Catches of pink shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico declined from 10,000-12,000 metric tons a year in the 1980s to around 500 metric tons in recent years. Catches of white shrimp in the same area over the same period fell from 1,600 metric tons/year to less than 200 tons/year. The major problem has been the failure to enforce a closed season for shrimping during their main reproductive periods. On the Pacific coast (including the Sea of Cortés), shrimping resumed on 5 September 2014.

The Shrimp Trade

Shrimp exports are worth $360 million a year. Shrimp imports have risen sharply in the past two years as disease has reduced domestic production. Indeed, Mexico is currently having to import more frozen shrimp than it exports.

Mexico’s shrimp exports in the first half of 2014 were worth US $91.4 million, slightly down from 2013, while imports shot up 935% to $106.6 million. Mexico is importing shrimp from Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Belize.

Cultivated shrimp

As a consequence of Early Mortality Syndrome (EMS), the production of farmed shrimp dropped sharply between 2012 and 2013, but is expected to recover in 2015. EMS first appeared in 2009 in the southern part of China, and then spread to Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. According to SAGARPA, the disease shows up in the first 20 to 30 days of life of the shrimp, and especially affects tiger (Penaeus monodon) and white (Litopenaeus vannamei) shrimp. The disease adversely impacted thousands of producers, with shrimp mortality rates as high as 98%.

The strain of EMS found in Mexico is very similar (but not identical) to the Asian strain. It is unclear how it arrived in Mexico and whether or not it was transferred across the Pacific.

The National Aquaculture and Fishing Commission (Comision Nacional de Acuacultura y Pesca—CONAPESCA) sets the closed season for fishing and shrimping. In general, the closed season is timed to coincide with the shirmp’s summer breeding season.

What is being done about EMS?

Among the strategies being adopted to combat the adverse impact of EMS are research, provision of financing and limits on shrimp imports from infected regions.

In June 2013, a breakthrough in EMS research was reported, when investigators attached to Kinki University and the National Research Institute of Aquaculture in Japan showed that the disease repeatedly manifests itself in ponds where the pH levels are between 8.5 and 8.8.

Shrimp farmers have needed emergency financing to help them restock shrimp ponds. In 2013, fish farmers in Sinaloa received $75 million to help with shrimp production and exports.

In April 2013, Mexico’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Secretariat (SAGARPA) ordered the temporary suspension of shrimp imports originating from China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. The suspension included all tiger and white shrimp, whether live, raw, cooked, dehydrated or “in any presentation”. However, this strategy was criticized by international experts as “counterproductive”, given that there is no evidence for EMS being spread via dead shrimp.

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Sep 182014
 

Which countries have the most promising crops of leaders coming up through the ranks today, and where in the world are there more young people likely to develop into business leaders tomorrow? And how can leadership be measured at all? SHL, a U.K.-based talent management consulting firm, released a study in 2012 that aims to provide answers to those questions.

SHL is a giant in the world of employee assessments, with more than 10,000 clients in over 100 countries. It offers services to consultancies like Deloitte and KPMG, multinationals like Unilever and organizations like the United Nations and the European Personnel Selection Office.

Ranking Effective Leaders Today Potential
Leaders of Tomorrow
Ranking change
between leaders for today and leaders for tomorrow
1-25 Country %  Country %   ↑or↓
1 Hong Kong 14% Mexico 54% 21↑
2 Germany 13% Turkey 50% 16↑
3 United Kingdom 10% Egypt 44%  New entry
4 Australia ∞ 10% Switzerland 43% 2↑
5 United States 10% Brazil 42% 19↑
6 Switzerland 10% India 41% New entry
7 Canada 10% Italy 41% 10↑
8 Japan∞ 9% United States 41% 3↓
9 Singapore ∞ 9% Germany 40% 7↓
10 New Zealand ∞ 8% Netherlands 40% New entry
11 Sweden 7% Taiwan 39% 1↑
12 Taiwan ∞ 7% United Arab Emirates 39% 9↑
13 France∞ 7% Denmark 39% 10↑
14 Thailand 7% Sweden 37% 3↓
15 Finland ∞ 7% Portugal 37% New entry
16 Belgium ∞ 7% Russia 37% New entry
17 Spain 6% Spain 37% No change
18 Turkey 6% Ireland 37% New entry
19 Italy 6% Indonesia 37% New entry
20 South Africa ∞ 6% China (Hong Kong) 37% 19↓
21 United Arab Emirates 6% United Kingdom 37% 18↓
22 Mexico 6% Norway 36% 3↑
23 Denmark 5% Poland 35% New entry
24 Brazil 5% Canada 35% 16↓
25 Norway 5% China (Mainland) 34% New entry
∞ Indicates those counties ranked in the top 25 leaders today that fall out of the top 25 for leadership potential tomorrow
“New entry” = countries not ranked in the top 25 today but listed in the top 25 for leadership potential tomorrow
 

This year, executives at SHL decided to mine data from past employee assessments and try to shed some light on the leadership potential in the many countries where it works. The SHL data came from 1.05 million client surveys gathered between 2006 and 2011. It focused on eight different skill areas to measure leadership capability: initiating activity and deciding, supporting and cooperating, interacting with and presenting to others, analyzing and interpreting data, creating and conceptualizing ideas, organizing and executing plans, adapting and coping with others, and finally, performing and achieving.

In September 2012, SHL published a list of the countries it believes have the greatest percentage of effective leaders, and those that it sees as most likely to develop leaders within the next three to five years. The list of current leaders may not be that surprising. The report ranks the country with the most leaders today as Hong Kong (treated as a separate country, though it is a special administrative region of mainland China), followed by Germany, the U.K., Australia, U.S.A., Canada and Switzerland.

The country that emerges as that with the most future leaders is… Mexico. According to SHL, Mexico’s “market is becoming more international and its leaders are strengthening in several different categories.”

This is an interesting analysis, but only time will tell whether or not it holds much validity!

How well do you know the geography of Mexico? Quiz 11

 Quiz  Comments Off on How well do you know the geography of Mexico? Quiz 11
Sep 152014
 

We hope you will enjoy our eleventh quiz about the geography of Mexico.

How many of the following can you answer? (If you answer a question incorrectly, you can have more tries before the answer is revealed.)

Good Luck, enjoy, and Happy Independence Day!

Geography of Mexico Quiz 11

Start
Congratulations - you have completed Geography of Mexico Quiz 11. You scored %%SCORE%% out of %%TOTAL%%. Your performance has been rated as %%RATING%%
Your answers are highlighted below.

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Test wells being drilled to assess Mexico City’s deep water aquifer

 Mexico's geography in the Press, Updates to Geo-Mexico  Comments Off on Test wells being drilled to assess Mexico City’s deep water aquifer
Sep 132014
 

Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil giant, will start drilling the first of two deep exploratory wells in Mexico City later this month to investigate an aquifer deep below the city that is believed to hold vast quantities of potable quality water. For further background, please see our previous post on this topic:

The test wells are part of a $30 million multi-agency study now underway that incorporates experts from the Water System of Mexico City (SACM), the National Water Commission (CONAGUA), the engineering and geology departments of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and Pemex, which is providing the technology to drill the wells.

Later this month, Pemex will start drilling the first 2000-meter-deep test well in the Magdalena Mixhuca Sports City area, in the eastern part of Mexico City. Each well will cost an estimated $7.6 million to complete.

Schematic stratigraphy of the southern portion of the Basin of Mexico.

Schematic stratigraphy of the southern portion of the Basin of Mexico.
Source: Adapted from Mooser, 1990.

Ramón Aguirre, the CEO of SACM, says that the two test wells will target two different zones, increasing the chances of demonstrating the value of the aquifer as a viable source of water for Mexico City. In particular, Aguirre expects the wells to help confirm that there is an impermeable cap of clay separating the deep aquifer from the principal aquifer in the area (from which water is already extracted). An impermeable layer would mean that water could be safely removed from the deep aquifer without leading to downward drainage of water from the aquifer above. It is expected to take about two years for the initial studies to be completed.

In its National Water Plan, CONAGUA has warned that population growth in the Valley of Mexico could result in serious water shortages by 2030, reducing annual availability from about 4,230 cubic meters/person to less than 1,000 cubic meters/person.

The major aquifer currently used lies at a depth of between 60 and 400 meters and is heavily over-utilized. There are about 630 wells in the Federal District alone; all are overexploited and have an average life expectancy of 30 years. Current extraction from the aquifer is around 17,000 liters/second, while its natural recharge capacity is only 8000-9000 liters/second. It is believed that the deep aquifer could be capable of supplying approximately 5000 liters/second.

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Toxic spill in Sonora copper mine causes environmental disaster

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Sep 112014
 

A toxic spill at a copper mine in the northwestern state of Sonora is the Mexican mining sector’s worst environmental disaster in recent history.

The mine is owned by mining giant Grupo México, Mexico’s largest mining corporation and operated by its Buenavista del Cobre division. Grupo México is the third largest copper producer in the world and has a rail transport division, Ferrocarril Mexicano (Ferromex), that operates Mexico’s largest rail fleet. The Buenavista del Cobre mine, part-way through a $3.4 billion expansion plan, has some of the largest proven copper reserves in the world and is the world’s fourth largest copper mine.

The spill allowed 40,000 cubic meters of toxic copper sulfate acid to enter the Tinajas stream in the town of Cananea on 6 August 2014. Buenavista del Cobre claimed the spill was the result of an unforeseeable heavy rain storm, which triggered a rise in the level of water and copper sulfate in a holding tank being constructed at the copper mine. Grupo México has formed a team of 20 experts from the University of Arizona and Mexican universities to investigate the spill.

However, an initial report by the National Water Commission (Conagua) determined that the spill was caused by a flawed polyethylene pipe at one of the mine’s leachate tanks, together with a faulty valve at another tank. Conagua attributed the environmental disaster to negligence on the part of the company. Mexico’s federal environmental protection agency (Profepa) reported that the contaminants from the spill included copper, arsenic, aluminum, cadmium, chromium, iron, manganese and lead.

Sonora-Copper-Mine-Spill-

Credit: Jesus Ballesteros/Expreso-Cuartoscuro.com

Mexico’s Environment Secretary Juan José Guerra Abud called it the “worst natural disaster provoked by the mining industry in the modern history of Mexico,” and confirmed that the spill contaminated not only the 17.6-kilometer-long (11-mile-long) Tinajas stream, but also the River Bacanuchi (64 kilometers in length), the River Sonora (190 kilometers long) and the El Molinito reservoir which stores 15.4 million cubic meters of water.

The contamination turned the waterways orange (see image) and affected the water supply of 24,000 people in seven communities along the rivers, forcing schools to close for several weeks while environmental authorities clean up the mess. More than 300 wells were shut down. The Sonora state government has been providing millions of liters of water via trucks to residents in the affected area. It has also started a temporary employment program to reactivate the local economy. The mining company has provided 13 million liters of water and $266,000 in immediate assistance to affected communities.

Some 800 mine workers, members of Mexico’s national mining and metallurgical workers union, blockaded the mine entrances in protest at the company’s failure to prevent the spill. Workers have been fighting over contracts since a strike in 2007.

The total clean-up costs are unknown, but likely to run into tens of millions of dollars.

On 18 August, Profepa filed a criminal complaint against Buenavista del Cobre and another Grupo México unit, Minera México, for their alleged roles in the spill. Grupo México could be fined up to 3.3 million dollars if the complaint is upheld.

Sonora State Governor Guillermo Padrés Elías has announced that the seven municipalities affected by the leached copper spill are filing a civil claim for damages.

Eight years ago in the northern state of Coahuila, an explosion in a coal mine belonging to Grupo México left 65 miners trapped underground; only two bodies were ever recovered.

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Sep 082014
 

In mid-August 2014, this significant fissure (see image) appeared near the city of Hermosillo in northern Mexico, with some press reports opting for headlines such as “The Earth Splits Open”:

fissure-hermosillo-eyewitness-news

While many press reports, especially those in English, tried to link this fissure to faulting and earthquake movements, others were more cautious, saying it was caused by movement of water underground followed by subsidence. Which version is correct? Probably neither is completely correct, since geography often fails to provide a single, definitive reason for things!

The crack is about 1000 meters (two thirds of a mile) long and up to 7 or 8 meters wide and 10 meters deep. While some press reports erroneously claimed that the crack extended across the main, paved, highway #26 between Hermosillo and the coast, its location was actually some distance away from the main highway. The road shown in the image above is a rural, unpaved road about 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Hermosillo, in an area of farmland, some of which is irrigated.

Could the fissure have been formed by faulting associated with earth tremors or an earthquake? If this was the cause, the fence line, and the line taken by the road would have shifted position and no longer be straight. The image clearly shows that the road has been severed, but provides no evidence that the two sides have shifted position. Indeed, a close-up view confirms that even the existing fence remains in place:

fissure-hermosillo-fence-line

The available evidence therefore rules out faulting (or earth tremors or earthquakes) as the cause of the crack.

Could the fissure have been caused by an underground flow of water followed by subsidence (the collapse of overlying rocks)? This certainly looks more likely though it is hard to imagine significant underground flows of water in an area that is as flat as this. On the other hand, this is (a) an area of newly constructed irrigation ditches and ponds, and (b) it received heavy rainfall a few days before the crack was reported.

In all probability, the fissure began as a deep but very narrow “subsidence fissure” where differences in irrigation (or in water extraction) caused some parts to be much wetter than others. The soil and rock particles in wetter areas would tend to expand, while those in drier areas would tend to contract. Such differences could lead to the formation of small initial fissures.

Once the fissure had been started, localized heavy rains and the resulting overland flow could then result in streams flowing (temporarily) in these initial fissures. The moving stream water would rapidly widen and deepen the fissures into the scale of crack shown in the photos. The initial fissure may have been formed several years before this widening process occurred.

For a more detailed look at the evidence for this fissure’s formation (and its true location), see Debunked: The Earth Splitting Open – Giant Crack in Mexico.

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A new airport for Mexico City

 Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on A new airport for Mexico City
Sep 032014
 

The Mexico City Benito Juárez International Airport handled 31.5 million passengers in 2013, but is operating at near capacity. To ease its congestion, the federal Communications and Transportation Secretariat (SCT) has announced plans to expand the airport eastwards, by annexing 5500 hectares of adjacent federal land bordering Lake Texcoco. The expansion will take several years to complete.

A long-term 9.2-billion-dollar master plan for the airport, with two main phases of construction, was developed by engineering consultancy Arup.

Earlier this week during his second state-of-the-nation address, President Enrique Peña Nieto announced that the winning proposal for designing the new terminal building that forms an integral part of the first phase was submitted by UK-based architect Sir Norman Foster and his Mexican associate Fernando Romero, Carlos Slim’s son-in-law, in association with Netherlands Airports Consultants.

Peña Nieto described the new airport as “the biggest infrastructure project in recent years… and one of the biggest in the world.” He emphasized that his administration was not adopting the easiest short-term path, but “choosing the responsible path”, adding that a project of this scale would inevitably extend well beyond his time in office.

He expected that the new airport would boost tourism, allow more airlines to serve Mexico City, and also help to regenerate an area that has previously suffered severe environmental degradation.

The winning design for the iconic new terminal takes the shape of an “X”, incorporates national symbols in its details, and offers ample space for airport operations, passenger services and exhibitions. The architect is confident that the new airport will be the most sustainable airport in the world, and exceed LEED platinum standards, the highest level of LEED certification.

The first stage, due to be concluded by 2020, involves construction of a new terminal building, control tower and all the infrastructure for operating two runways simultaneously, handling up to 50 million passenger movements a year. Initial work on drainage and foundations will begin later this year. The first phase will generate an estimated 50,000 direct jobs and 160,000 jobs in total.

By 2050, a second phase would have added four more runways and more than doubled the airport’s capacity to 120 million passenger movements.

Record passenger levels in Mexican airports

During the first five months of 2014, Mexico’s airports registered 26,797,688 passenger movements (about 45% international, 55% national), a new record, and 10.8% more that for the same period in 2013. Aeroméxico, the nation’s flagship carrier, accounted for 35.3% of all passenger movements in Mexico, followed by Interjet (23.4%), Volaris (23.3%) and VivaAerobus (12.5%). Aeroméxico recently added several new routes, including links from the northern industrial city of Monterrey to Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosí, Cancún, Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos.

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How fast are mangroves disappearing in Mexico?

 Updates to Geo-Mexico  Comments Off on How fast are mangroves disappearing in Mexico?
Sep 012014
 

It is surprisingly difficult to give a single, definitive response to this seemingly simple question, so in 2008, Arturo Ruiz-Luna and a group of researchers set out to answer the question once and for all, by taking a close look at the available data and its reliability.

The first challenge is to define precisely what counts as “an area of mangroves”. Since the edges of any one type of vegetation tend to merge gradually into the next, the boundaries between types are often not clear or discrete. The second challenge is to find comparable maps or records of the extent of mangroves in former times. In many cases, earlier maps were based on simple aerial photography as opposed to the more sophisticated satellite imagery available today. Equally, studies relying on different technology may produce quite different results.

Ruiz-Luna and his colleagues concluded that there was a high degree of uncertainty over the true extent of mangrove cover in Mexico and over the rates of mangrove depletion.  The unreliability stemmed from the very different estimates of mangrove cover given in earlier studies.

Opposition to mangrove destructon

Opposition to the destruction of mangroves, Cancún climate summit, 2010

They found that the earliest estimate of the extent of mangroves in Mexico, made in 1973, was 700,000 ha (1.7 million acres). From 1980-1991, a figure of 660,000 ha was widely quoted. This is thought to have been derived from the previous figure using a linear regression to include estimated deforestation rates.

On the other hand, a study in 1992, based on 1:3,800,000 scale maps, arrived at an areal extent of 932,800 ha. A 1993 government estimate, based on satellite imagery and supporting ground survey, came up with a figure of 721,554 ha. A 1994 estimate, also using satellite data, arrived at a similar figure.

Since 2000, estimates vary from a low of 440,000 ha (based on deforestation rates and linear regression) to a high of 955,866 (almost all of it mangrove, with a small area of secondary mangrove succession).

According to Ruiz-Luna and his co-authors, it is therefore likely that the true value of the extent of mangroves lies somewhere between 600,000 and 900,000 ha, with the authors plumping for 800,000 ha as a reasonable estimate.

Why are mangroves lost?

Mangrove habitats are lost due to damage (deforestation) from logging and land use changes. Examples of land use changes adversely affecting the extent of mangroves are:

  • the conversion of mangroves to harbors, as in Manzanillo (Colima)
  • mangroves being converted for hotels and tourist use (Cancún)
  • mangrove swamps being reassigned for aquaculture (San Blas)

The loss of mangroves can also result from changes to hydrological systems on the landward side of the mangroves. For example, when an artificial channel was opened in the 1970s in Cuautla (Nayarit) to connect the Marismas Nacionales with the sea, the channel was originally about 50m wide. It is now about 600m wide in the middle, and more than 1000m wide at its mouth, due to damage caused by the river flow, and from the greater exposure of mangroves to higher salinity water, as well as increased mangrove mortality from storms and hurricanes.

While there are some small-scale projects to replant mangroves in some tourist area, this is unlikely to be a good substitute for the original mature mangrove ecosystem. This is why Geo-Mexico is happy to help publicize public protests against mangrove destruction, such as the one pictured above which took place at the Cancún climate summit in 2010.

Reference:

Arturo Ruiz-Luna, Joanna Acosta-Velázquez, César A. Berlanga-Robles. 2008. “On the reliability of the data of the extent of mangroves: A case study in Mexico.” Ocean and Coastal Management 51 (2008) 342-351.

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