Lake Texcoco

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Lake Texcoco
Lago de Texcoco Tetzco(h)co
paleo lake
Surface area	2,100 square miles (5,400 km2)
Max. depth	over 500 feet (150 m)
Surface elevation	7,349 feet (2,240 m)
Ramsar Wetland
Official name	Lago de Texcoco
Designated	5 June 2022
Reference no.	2469[1]

Lake Texcoco (

After the cancellation of the Mexico City Texcoco Airport, the government initiated a major restoration project of a significant part of the lake in the form of the Lake Texcoco Ecological Park, 14,000 hectares of public space and ecological restoration.

Geography

The

Agriculture around the lake began about 7,000 years ago,[6] with humans following the patterns of periodic inundations of the lake.

Several villages appeared on the northeast side of the lake between 1700 and 1250 BC. By 1250 BC the identifying signs of the Tlatilco culture, including more complex settlements and a stratified social structure, are seen around the lake. By roughly 800 BC Cuicuilco had eclipsed the Tlatilco cultural centers and was the major power in the Valley of Mexico during the next 200 years when its famous conical pyramid was built. The Xitle volcano destroyed Cuicuilco around AD 30, a destruction that may have given rise to Teotihuacan.

After the fall of Teotihuacan, AD 600–800, several other city states appeared around the lake, including Xoloc, Azcapotzalco, Tlacopan, Coyohuacan, Culhuacán, Chimalpa, and Chimalhuacán – mainly from Toltec and Chichimeca influence. None of these predominated and they coexisted more or less in peace for several centuries. This time was described as a Golden age in Aztec chronicles. By the year 1300, however, the Tepanec from Azcapotzalco were beginning to dominate the area.

Tenochtitlan

According to a traditional story, the Mexica wandered in the deserts of modern Mexico for 100 years before they came to the thick forests of the place now called the Valley of Mexico.

The Aztec ruler Ahuitzotl attempted to build an aqueduct that would take fresh water from the mainland to the lakes surrounding the Tenochtitlan city. The aqueduct failed, and the city suffered a major flood in 1502.^[8][9]

During Hernán Cortés's siege of Tenochtitlan in 1521, the dams were destroyed, and never rebuilt, so flooding became a big problem for the new Mexico City built over Tenochtitlan.

Artificial drainage

Mexico City suffered from periodic floods; in 1604 the lake flooded the city, with an even more severe flood following in 1607. Under the direction of Enrico Martínez, a drain was built to control the level of the lake, but in 1629 another flood kept most of the city covered for five years. At that time, it was debated whether to relocate the city, but the Spanish authorities decided to keep the existing location.^{[citation needed]}

Eventually the lake was drained by the channels and a tunnel to the Pánuco River, but even that could not stop floods, since by then most of the city was under the water table. The flooding could not be completely controlled until the twentieth century. In 1967, construction of the Drenaje Profundo ("Deep Drainage System"), a network of several hundred kilometers of tunnels, was done, at a depth between 30 and 250 m (98 and 820 ft). The central tunnel has a diameter of 6.5 m (21.3 ft) and carries rain water out of the basin. The eastern discharge tunnel was inaugurated in 2019.^{[citation needed]}

The ecological consequences of the draining were enormous. Parts of the valleys were turned semi-arid, and even today Mexico City suffers from lack of water. Due to overdrafting that is depleting the aquifer beneath the city, Mexico City is estimated to have sunk 10 meters (33 feet) in the last century.^[10] Furthermore, because soft lake sediments underlie most of Mexico City, the city has proven vulnerable to soil liquefaction during earthquakes, most notably in the 1985 earthquake when hundreds of buildings collapsed and thousands of people died.^[11]

The term "Texcoco Lake" now refers only to a big area surrounded by salt marshes 4 km (2.5 mi) east of Mexico City, which covers part of the ancient lake bed. Also there are small remnants of the lakes of Xochimilco, Chalco, and Zumpango.^{[citation needed]}

Several species indigenous to the lake are now extinct or endangered (e.g. axolotls).^[12]

The modern Texcoco Lake has a high concentration of salts and its waters are evaporated for their processing. A Mexican company, "Sosa Texcoco S.A." has an 800-hectare (2,000-acre) solar evaporator known as El Caracol.^{[citation needed]}

Land reclamation of the lakebed was part of Mexico's attempts at development in the twentieth century.^[13]

Restoration and conservation

Ecological park

See also

• History of Mexico City
• Index of Mexico-related articles
• Paleontological Museum in Tocuila
• List of prehistoric lakes

Notes