San Cristóbal de las Casas is a historic city in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. Founded on March 31, 1528, the city rests in the valley floor of a mountain basin, and serves as a cultural and economic center for the region. Despite the region’s abundant annual rainfall, the access to clean water and sanitation services lags behind the national average. Contributing to the hardships of the populace, the state of Chiapas, along with the neighboring states of Oaxaca and Guerrero, consistently ranks among the poorest states in Mexico.   

 

In San Cristóbal, the human health and environmental problems associated with poverty and an inadequate services infrastructure have been exacerbated by a rapid increase in population. In the past 15 years, socio-political upheaval and religious conflict in the surrounding region resulted in an influx of immigrants to the city. This population growth has driven the construction of new neighborhoods surrounding the historic city center.  The rate of construction has outpaced the city’s modest ability to provide these new residents with services leading to widespread sanitation and water availability problems.

 

San Cristóbal’s water resources are threatened by rapid unplanned growth, changing land use, and a lack of services. These factors contribute to the environmental degradation of the watershed, and threaten the health of the people who live within it. Our project builds upon research completed by a Group Project in 2006 at the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at University of California, Santa Barbara. This previous work sought to address key concerns such as a shortage of data in order to assemble a framework for a sustainable watershed management plan for the city and watershed of San Cristóbal. Our project is a collaboration between research and community based organizations in both San Cristóbal and at the Bren School. It aims to address some of the concerns and recommendations of the previous Group Project, as well as to develop pilot implementation projects and further recommendations to aid the watershed in a sustainable manner.