Mexico's water consumers pay a third of the cost of purification and distribution, and just 30 percent comply with payments for the service, complain authorities. These circumstances mean no one wants to invest in the water system, which suffers serious problems of leaks and waste. More than half the water distributed is lost.

To raise awareness about the importance of water, the government prepared a series of public service messages that will be disseminated by the communications media beginning in August.

Mexico has 4,675 cubic meters of water available per person per year, a quantity far behind that of Canada (90,000 cubic meters), Brazil (42,944), Argentina (26,544), Guatemala (11,804) and United States (8,801), according to a World Bank study.