Water scarcity is emerging as one of the defining challenges of our time. Across the globe, communities face unprecedented stress on rivers and aquifers, with growing populations, climate variability, and pollution pushing ecosystems beyond their natural limits. In this context, the project presented here is conceived as a bold response to restore balance: transforming a degraded river into a strategic resource that ensures agricultural sustainability, climate resilience, and community well-being.
The intervention is located in the Ayuquila River Basin, within Hydrological Region VIII Lerma-Santiago-Pacific, in San Gabriel, Jalisco (Mexico). The objective is to treat and clean a flow of 8,600 m³/day, equivalent to more than 3.1 million m³/year, the same as the annual consumption of 50,000 inhabitants. This potable-quality water will be allocated to precision irrigation, replacing withdrawals from the Autlán aquifer, which today suffers from overexploitation and progressive salinization.
The rationale of the project lies in breaking a vicious cycle: polluted rivers and depleted aquifers that jeopardize agricultural production and community health. The proposed solution reverses this logic by recovering surface water and converting it into a safe, sustainable, and traceable resource. The initiative involves local operators, technology providers of ultrafiltration and UV disinfection, specialized sustainability structuring partners, local authorities as institutional allies, and external verifiers certifying the benefits under VWBA/WQBA methodologies.
The impact is measured not only in volumes: the initiative ensures the removal of critical pollutants, reduces energy use from deep-well pumping, and restores climate resilience in the basin. Furthermore, it aligns with the Water Positive strategy, fulfilling the principles of intentionality, additionality, and traceability, which guarantee that every cubic meter treated represents a real, verifiable, and scalable water benefit.
Looking ahead, this model is replicable and scalable in other agricultural basins with similar conditions. Its implementation contributes directly to SDGs 6, 9, 12, and 13, strengthens the international reputation of the agri-food sector, and becomes a benchmark in water innovation. The expected outcome is twofold: restoration of the Ayuquila River and protection of aquifers, ensuring safe water for production and public health. lower emissions from pumping, and strengthened food security. Strategically, it aligns with the Water Positive roadmap, contributes to SDGs, provides competitive differentiation, and enhances ESG reputation. The model is scalable to other agricultural basins in Mexico and Latin America under similar technical and social conditions, with expansion potential through public-private partnerships and international cooperation. The final impact is twofold: restoring the basin’s water balance and reinforcing its climate resilience, while generating employment, access, and social trust in the transition toward a regenerative economy.
The project stems from the technical and strategic urgency of addressing a degraded basin where surface water is highly polluted and aquifers are in decline, creating growing risks for water security, agricultural productivity, and social stability.
The opportunity lies in transforming this reality through a modular river purification and treatment plant that ensures the recovery of 8,600 m³/day of clean water, with an annual impact of more than 3.1 million m³. This volume equals the yearly supply for a medium-sized city, proving the scale and tangibility of change. The direct benefit is replacing groundwater abstraction with regenerated surface water, lowering energy costs, mitigating salinization, and improving irrigation efficiency.
In the short term, the solution provides immediate availability of safe water for crops; in the medium term, it strengthens agricultural resilience, brings traceability to the agri-food chain, and responds to international certification demands; in the long term, it consolidates regional water sustainability and enhances the reputation of the agricultural sector in global markets.
The issues it addresses are multiple: losses from over-pumping, low efficiency due to high-solid and contaminated water, conflicts from pressure on aquifers, and increasing social and regulatory scrutiny over river deterioration. Key aggravating factors include untreated urban discharges, indiscriminate agrochemical use, lack of sanitation infrastructure, and weak regulatory frameworks for integrated basin management.
The response is innovative, robust, and replicable: combining ultrafiltration processes and chlorine-free disinfection, digital management with real-time monitoring, and water benefits traceability certified under VWBA/WQBA. This model can be led by agricultural, agri-food, consumer goods, or other companies seeking to meet ESG commitments, differentiate competitively, reduce regulatory risks, and align with increasingly demanding regulations. Investing in or collaborating on such a project means not only securing water for production but also positioning as a key actor in the transition to a Water Positive future, with verifiable economic, reputational, and environmental benefits.
The modular purification and treatment plant integrates pre-treatment, coagulation-flocculation, sedimentation, sand and activated carbon filtration, ultrafiltration, and UV disinfection. After assessing alternatives such as drilling new wells or conventional chlorination, this configuration was selected for its superior efficiency, lower environmental impact, and alignment with international standards. With an installed capacity of 8,600 m³/day, it secures agricultural demand and represents a hybrid solution of grey and digital infrastructure, enhanced with online monitoring and IoT-based traceability.
This technology directly addresses surface water contamination and aquifer overexploitation in a context of increasing climate stress. It was chosen based on efficiency, cost-benefit, positive environmental impact, regulatory compliance, and high potential for replicability. According to VWBA principles of additionality, traceability, and intentionality, each cubic meter treated and used becomes a verifiable water benefit, fully aligned with the Water Positive strategy.
The expected outcomes include annual savings of 3.1 million m³, significant improvements in water quality through reductions of BOD, TSS, nitrates, and coliforms, decreased emissions due to reduced pumping, recovery of riparian biodiversity, and enhanced food security. From a social perspective, the project improves public health, generates skilled employment, and reinforces community resilience. Economically, it reduces operating costs, boosts export competitiveness, and facilitates ESG certifications.
Risks such as technological failures, hydrological variability, and limited social acceptance are anticipated. To mitigate them, modular redundancies, contingency plans, continuous monitoring, shared governance, and preventive and predictive maintenance protocols are incorporated. Additional safeguards prevent critical issues such as accidental contamination, supply shortages, or saline intrusion. Long-term resilience is reinforced through climate adaptation measures and integrated basin management.
The model is designed for scalability and replicability in other agricultural basins in Mexico and Latin America under similar conditions. Success factors include regulatory frameworks that promote water reuse, strong community participation, and access to green financing. Its competitiveness rests on favorable cost-benefit ratios per cubic meter treated and the ability to generate measurable benefits. Expansion will be supported by public-private partnerships, international cooperation, and technology networks, amplifying its contribution to regional water sustainability.
The project implementation follows a structured and detailed process addressing technical, operational, and governance dimensions. It will be carried out under a phased and adaptive approach, allowing validation at each stage and process adjustments as needed. The diagnosis and baseline phase (six months) includes water quality and flow studies, establishment of VWBA/WQBA baseline, loss and emissions analysis, and hydrological balance. The design and installation phase (twelve months) involves construction of the modular plant, installation of ultrafiltration and UV disinfection systems, SCADA and IoT sensor integration, and initial equipment validation. The commissioning and validation phase verifies operational efficiency and compliance with standards (NOM-127-SSA1, ISO 24512, WHO), supported by external audits. Finally, the continuous operation phase ensures long-term preventive and predictive maintenance, shared governance, and periodic validations with VWBA/WQBA reporting.
Control instruments include flowmeters, multiparameter probes, IoT sensors for pressure and quality, and online monitoring of turbidity, BOD, nitrates, and coliforms. The system has a nominal capacity of 8,600 m³/day with stable efficiency above 95%. The baseline reference is established from official basin data and laboratory analyses prior to the project. KPIs include water recovered, contaminants removed, energy efficiency, and emissions avoided, measured monthly and verified annually. Physical traceability ensures monitoring from source to irrigation, and digital traceability is provided through SCADA, blockchain-based systems, and online reports. Automatic alarms flag deviations and trigger contingency protocols.
Governance involves local operators, technology providers, external verifiers ensuring compliance, and regulatory authorities as institutional guarantors. Clear responsibilities are assigned for operation, maintenance, monitoring, and validation. The plan includes scheduled preventive and corrective maintenance. For continuous improvement, VWBA/WQBA reports (m³ saved, regenerated, and contaminants removed) will be periodically applied, comparisons between with- and without-project scenarios will be performed, and feedback and technological upgrades will ensure permanence of benefits.
The Ayuquila River purification and treatment project represents a comprehensive and technically advanced intervention designed to transform polluted surface water into a reliable and safe resource for agricultural irrigation. At its core, the system incorporates multiple treatment stages including coarse pre-filtration, coagulation-flocculation to aggregate fine particles, sedimentation to separate solids, advanced ultrafiltration membranes that remove suspended matter and pathogens, and ultraviolet disinfection to neutralize microbial contaminants without generating harmful by-products. All these processes are continuously supervised through a digital monitoring system integrated with SCADA and IoT sensors that track flow, turbidity, pH, conductivity, nitrates, and coliform counts in real time. The facility has a nominal treatment capacity of 8,600 m³/day, equivalent to more than 3.1 million m³/year, and is designed to operate with over 95% efficiency. It complies with NOM-127-SSA1, ISO 24512, and WHO standards, ensuring that the water meets both national and international quality requirements for agricultural use.
The significance of this intervention lies in addressing two structural problems: the chronic overexploitation of aquifers, leading to water table decline and risks of saline intrusion, and the persistent contamination of the Ayuquila River, which until now has limited its usability for irrigation. By shifting reliance from unsustainable groundwater withdrawals to treated surface water of certified quality, the project delivers a tangible transformation from a precarious baseline to a sustainable and resilient model of water use.
The expected results are diverse and measurable. From a quantitative perspective, the project secures the recovery of more than 3.1 million m³/year, reducing groundwater extraction by an equivalent amount. From a qualitative standpoint, it achieves reductions exceeding 95% in suspended solids, 99% in pathogenic microorganisms, and significant decreases in nitrates and agrochemical residues, thereby protecting crops, soils, and downstream ecosystems. Public health benefits emerge as exposure to unsafe water is eliminated, while energy-related emissions decline due to reduced dependence on deep well pumping. Food security is strengthened by guaranteeing a stable and safe water supply for high-value crops, insulating production from both contamination and scarcity shocks.
Strategically, the initiative aligns with the Water Positive roadmap and contributes directly to multiple Sustainable Development Goals. It enhances ESG positioning by offering verifiable evidence of intentional, additional, and traceable benefits, reinforcing corporate responsibility credentials. The project also strengthens competitiveness in export markets where sustainability certification is increasingly required.
The design emphasizes replicability and scalability. It can be adapted to other basins in Mexico and Latin America with similar conditions, provided there is alignment with local regulatory frameworks and community engagement. Partnerships with public institutions, private actors, and international organizations are foreseen to facilitate financing, validation, and expansion. In the long term, the project’s final impact is dual: restoring the water balance of the Ayuquila River and reinforcing climate resilience of the basin, while simultaneously generating employment, improving community access to safe water, and building social trust as part of a broader transition to a regenerative water economy.
