Making scarcity “enough”: The hidden household costs of adapting to water scarcity in Mexico City

In the face of water scarcity due to climate change and population growth, cities around world, especially in Global South, increasingly provide intermittent, rather than continuous, supply. Because an intermittent supply has negative effects on infrastructure quality, literature often recommends transition continuous supply, but that may be unfeasible or cost-prohibitive for many cities. There are few policy recommendations ensuring safe equitable urban access within water-scarce systems. By understanding how households bear monetary non-monetary costs intermittency, we can make safer, more sustainable, equitable. This study combines results from open-ended household interviews ethnographic observations about management (n = 59 households) with a large-N survey 2,595 individuals) understand experienced Mexico City. We found most residents reported satisfaction quantity incurred achieve satisfaction. document ways adapted , transforming they received grid by storing, reusing, conserving water. These adaptations “made enough,” allowing families store preserve sufficient meet their needs . However, these same simultaneously burdened financial costs, such as expenditures storage, pumps, alternative sources, time-intensive labor spent managing noticeable deterioration drinking quality scarce public is distributed unequally throughout city, financial, labor, impacts adapting were borne privately, primarily marginalized households. Our findings intermittency have implications justice equity. conclude solutions address during storage inequalities intermittency.