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Declassified Mexico Water Allocation Map Created By The CIA This CIA-produced map of Mexico’s water allocation highlights the growing imbalance between water supply and demand across the country. Using watershed regions rather than state borders, the map categorizes areas by levels of water stress, ranging from “without stress” in the wetter southeast to “very high” stress across much of northern and central Mexico. The darkest regions including Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Nuevo León, and the Mexico City region, represent areas where water resources are heavily overallocated, meaning consumption is approaching or exceeding sustainable supply. The map reflects one of Mexico’s defining geographic challenges: population and industry are concentrated in some of the driest parts of the country. Northern Mexico contains major manufacturing centers, irrigated agriculture, and rapidly growing border cities tied closely to the US economy, while central Mexico includes the enormous urban concentration around Mexico City. At the same time, southern states such as Oaxaca and the Yucatán Peninsula receive far greater rainfall and face comparatively lower stress levels. This uneven distribution has long shaped Mexican economic development, migration, and infrastructure policy. The map remains highly relevant today because water scarcity has become one of North America’s most serious environmental and political issues. Prolonged droughts, climate change, aquifer depletion, and disputes over the Rio Grande and Colorado River systems have intensified tensions between Mexican states, agricultural users, cities, and the United States. Major urban areas, including Monterrey and Mexico City, have experienced severe water shortages in recent years, bringing national attention to aging infrastructure and unsustainable groundwater extraction. Visually, the map demonstrates the CIA’s interest in environmental pressures as national security concerns. Rather than focusing purely on climate or rainfall, it emphasizes allocation stress, the relationship between available resources and human demand. In doing so, it presents water scarcity not simply as an environmental issue, but as a driver of economic instability, migration pressures, agricultural vulnerability, and regional political tension across Mexico and the broader US–Mexico border region. More Declassified 2010s CIA Maps: brilliantmaps.com/cia-maps-2…