There is a need for further cooperation and profound change. There is much to learn from the U.S.-Mexico collaboration to update the colorado River water distribution, known as 2017 Minute 323 and 2012 Water Contract 1912. It is a “Mexican water reserve” in Lake Mead, which allows Mexico to delay water distribution in the United States and store it in the United States, increasing the height of water on Lake Mead, a result that benefits U.S. and Mexican users and the environment. With the water level on Lake Mead, which serves as the basis for determining shortage conditions and cuts in distributions, Mexico is now participating in the reductions with Arizona, California and Nevada. The negotiated protocol also includes the recognition of the natural environment as a water user (a global breakthrough) and the provision of environmental flows to restore water basins in Mexico, with the United States funding the flow and restoration of the environment in exchange for water stored on Lake Mead. A water shortage emergency plan has also been put in place. In many ways, the protocol is a feature of creative binational and sub-national cooperation and a non-zero approach to dealing with common issues. Agriculture accounts for 75% of water consumption in the southwestern United States and on the Mexican side. Other important attractions include energy production, industry and hydraulic fracturing.

Water is also needed for human consumption, as the population of the Rio Grande and Colorado River basins has increased significantly in recent decades. Global warming has reduced water flows, as filling snow packets in mountain spring waters melts earlier and faster and accumulates less. Global warming has also led to a decrease in rainfall and increased evaporation, exacerbating the drought. Together, these changes have reduced the supply of water supplies, while demand has increased well beyond what was expected in 1944. Depletion has weighed heavily on the basins and decimated the river ecosystems necessary for the sustainable hydrological functioning of the basins. A senior Texas lawmaker is calling on President Donald Trump to renegotiate a long-standing U.S.-Mexico deal that sets out ways to run water in the Rio Grande and Colorado rivers amid the president`s breakthrough to reassess international treaties. The key message for administration: don`t forget water. Under the 1944 Treaty, the two governments agreed on the international problem of the salinity of the Lower Colorado River (August 30, 1973) and the IBWC made “recommendations to address the problems of border supply” (September 24, 1979).