Climate Change and Social Vulnerability: A Case Study of the Mexico Lerma-Cutzamala Region

Climate change is reshaping precipitation patterns in Mexico, with significant regional and seasonal variations, leading to notable impacts on different components of the hydrological cycle for the whole country. The project focuses on assessing climate change and social vulnerability in the Mexico-Lerma Cutzamala hydrological region, an area that plays a critical role in the water supply to the Mexico City Metropolitan Area and has faced water scarcity issues for years. The analysis was conducted at a municipal level through a study area of 210 municipalities, extended on approximately 31,305 sq.km, with a population of over 23 million people. Using geospatial analysis, such as Hot Spot (Getis-Ord), the study identifies areas projected to experience the greatest declines in precipitation and/or rises in temperature under two different climate scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) for long-term (2081-2100) and mid-term (2041-2060) periods using CORDEX data. The project also evaluates the distribution of social vulnerability data produced by a Mexican agency (CONEVAL) and detects spatial clusters of municipalities with highest social vulnerability. In the final step, the climate vulnerability is integrated with the social vulnerability to highlight municipalities where high vulnerability overlaps for both data sets. The analysis allows to identify affected populations by both climate change and social challenges in the region. Results show that the high levels of vulnerability are located mostly on the west side of the study area, where water is extracted for Mexico City. The metropolitan area shows moderate values of climate vulnerability, but social necessities are of low concern.