Land subsidence and environmental law in Mexico: A reflection on civil liability for environmental damage

The land subsidence problems in Mexico have been increasing in recent years owing to excessive withdrawal of fluids, especially water and petroleum products. The main problem with the extraction of fluids from below the ground surface is often that the heavily populated cities, like Mexico City, are very much affected; there is an urgent need for new ways to identify and control the land subsidence related processes. Mexico as a whole is dominated by a long chain of mountainous terrain which is dissected by regional and trans-regional faults which run for long distances and along which the major cities are often located. The extraction of large volumes of fluids from the subsoil reduces pore pressure in particular zones, and causes surface subsidence. The combination of human and geological conditions can be related at a smaller scale, as this often happens locally in certain regions, especially in Mexico City. However, despite the importance of such phenomena, so significant as to justify a Federal Regulation and the inclusion in Criminal and Civil Codes of the definition of environmental crime by subsidence and civil damages for the same phenomenon, as well as special rules to repair the damage from this cause, there are none. A review of case law in Mexico (jurisprudence) of either constitutional disputes or any other cause related to subsidence problems did not find any relevant thesis or sentence. In this paper, a review of liability for environmental damage in Mexico and its relationship to the phenomena of subsidence induced by human activities is made.