Chapter 15 Managing Water Amid Rapid Urbanization: Mexico’s North Borderlands Nicolás Pineda-Pablos and Alejandro Salazar-Adams Abstract The arid and semiarid border cities of northern Mexico sit in a region of rapid industrial growth and development, but they face the challenge of supplying water to an ever-increasing number of people with ever-diminishing water supplies. A number of alternatives exist to meet this challenge: improvements in manage- ment efficiency, wastewater treatment and reuse, water transfers from agriculture, and seawater desalination. However, several factors within the current institutional framework, such as the turnover of water managers, the criteria used to design water rates, and the lack of effective sanctions for free riders, restrict the implementation of alternative solutions. In view of these constraints, a reform on water laws and a new institutional framework of urban water management are required to face the combination of water scarcity, economic growth, and the prospect of harsher and longer droughts in the near future. Keywords Borderlands · Desert · Economic growth · Efficiency · Mexico 15.1 Cities in the Desert In the years after World War II, American tourists used to cross the border into Mexico expecting a landscape of dusty towns where they could buy tequila, exotic food, and handcrafts. But with the emergence of manufacturing plants, called maquiladoras, and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), exchanges between both sides of the border increased considerably; northern Mexico now resembles US border cities like San Diego and El Paso, with modern factories, hotels, fast-food restaurants, and shopping malls. Northern Mexico, especially the cities that border the US, has become an increasingly important economic zone that is often used to exemplify the impacts of free trade and foreign investment in Latin America (Marston et al. 2002; Fournier 2001). The border region includes N. Pineda-Pablos (B ) El Colegio de Sonora, Sonora, Mexico 245 G. Schneier-Madanes, M.-F. Courel (eds.), Water and Sustainability in Arid Regions, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2776-4_15, C  Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010