Sustainability and Social Justice

A Spatially Explicit Water Balance Model for Assessing Recharge Sensitivity to Climate and Land Cover Change in Central Mexico

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Urban expansion and climate change increasingly threaten groundwater resources in megacities, particularly in regions with limited hydrological data. This study presents a spatially explicit water balance model that quantifies historical (1992–2020) and projected (2041–2060) changes in precipitation, actual evapotranspiration (AET), runoff and infiltration across seven basins in Central Mexico, including the Mexico City Metropolitan Area. The model integrates land cover, soil texture and slope within a runoff coefficient framework, relying exclusively on publicly available datasets and empirical formulations. Historical analysis indicates that while precipitation and AET showed no significant long-term trends, land cover change, particularly the expansion of impervious surfaces, increased the runoff-to-precipitation ratio and reduced the infiltration-to-precipitation ratio. Under future scenarios (SSP245 and SSP585), precipitation is projected to decline by 6%–9%, yet infiltration in the Mexico Basin is expected to decrease by up to 22%, demonstrating a nonlinear amplification of recharge losses relative to rainfall decline. These results highlight the sensitivity of infiltration processes to coupled land cover and climate changes, with disproportionate impacts in groundwater-dependent basins. The model provides a transferable, data-efficient framework for evaluating recharge potential and hydrological partitioning in data-limited regions. Beyond Central Mexico, the findings contribute to understanding how urban expansion modifies infiltration pathways and groundwater recharge under shifting climate conditions by reshaping hydrological processes. This novel framework, which relies entirely on globally available datasets, offers an internationally transferable tool for evaluating hydrological processes in data-limited and rapidly urbanising regions. The approach is intended to support water managers, utilities and urban planning agencies by identifying basins where recharge is most sensitive to impervious expansion and mid-century climate change. © 2026 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Publication Title

Hydrological Processes

Publication Date

3-2026

Volume

40

Issue

3

ISSN

0885-6087

DOI

10.1002/hyp.70473

Keywords

CMIP6 scenarios, data-scarce-regions, GIS based modelling, groundwater recharge, urban hydrology

Cross Post Location

Geography

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