MEXICO CITY – Mexico City authorities have announced an emergency, 10-month water rationing plan in response to severe shortages that Mayor Marcelo Ebrard blames on global warming.

“This year we’ve had the least amount of rainfall in many years. That’s caused the Cutzamala system, which ... accounts for a significant percentage of the city’s supply, to have lower levels than it should have,” Ebrard told a press conference on Thursday.

The National Water Commission, or Conagua, has warned in recent days that the seven reservoirs that make up the Cutzamala System, which supplies 24 percent of the Mexican capital and is the sole source of water for 10 municipalities on the city’s outskirts, were at dangerously low levels.

Conagua, in response, plans to reduce the water flowing from Cutzamala’s dams in the southwestern state of Michoacan to 13 municipalities of Greater Mexico City by 10 percent from Sunday to Thursday, 25 percent on Friday and 50 percent on Saturdays.

Residents of the giant metropolis had already been hit with partial stoppages earlier this year, including a cutoff in April that affected roughly a quarter of Mexico City’s population.

The goal of the new cutbacks is to save 6.68 million cubic meters (235.4 million cubic feet) of water per month, or 3.5 percent of the water consumed by the city and its surrounding area.

The leftist mayor blamed climate change for “disrupting” the rainy seasons to the point that authorities cannot depend on rain falling at set times during the year in Greater Mexico City’s 59 municipalities.

That has compounded a leaky-pipes problem whereby an estimated 40 percent of the water pumped out of underground aquifers is lost.

“If we don’t act now, both the government and the citizens, we won’t have enough water in the city during the dry season – February, March, April, May, primarily,” Ebrard said, adding that 13 of the metropolis’ 16 boroughs could be completely without water.

The Mexico City government has announced a 770-million-peso ($57.8 million) investment program to substitute water networks and capture systems, fix leaky pipes and reduce consumption by the city government, among other measures.

But Ebrard said it is up to federal authorities to invest in the Cutzamala system, maintaining and improving the reservoirs and caring for the ecosystems that support that watershed.

The mayor also called on citizens to reduce their daily consumption of water, especially spending less time in the shower and making sure that toilet flush valves are working properly.

“We want all of society (and) the government to act together to achieve our goal, which is to come together, safeguard the water we’re going to need in February, March, April and May of 2010,” Ebrard said.

For his part, the director of the Mexico City’s water department, Ramon Aguirre, said authorities want residents in the capital’s roughly two million homes to substitute their shower heads for ones that consume less water and to change their toilet valves.

“Simply changing the shower head should generate savings of 20 percent” in terms of city-wide water consumption, Aguirre said.

The official added that the city will train 500 female plumbers so they help “in the whole matter of detecting and repairing leaks” and offer more affordable service. EFE