Soil across Michoacán's avocado belt is losing water as avocado acreage and productivity expand. A study published in npj Sustainable Agriculture examined 2001–2018 and estimated an annual downward trend of 38 liters of water per cubic meter of soil across the region known as the Green Gold Belt.
The research combined satellite soil-moisture series, gross primary productivity, Landsat imagery and ground information. The study area covers 34 municipalities and about 29% of Michoacán; datasets were harmonized to identify trends, breakpoints and places where vegetation became more productive as soils dried.
Results show that 65% of negative soil-moisture trends overlapped avocado plantations, covering about 89,900 hectares. At the same time, 90% of increases in plant productivity coincided with the crop, indicating intensive production sustained by greater water use and evapotranspiration.
The team calculated a loss of 68.4 billion liters of topsoil moisture, equivalent to 11.3% of the state's residents' annual water needs under the reference used. It also identified 7,612 artificial ponds and placed nearly half of the belt within areas vulnerable to further decline.
Replacing pine and pine-oak forests alters the water cycle beyond direct irrigation. The authors cite evidence that native forest intercepts far more rainfall and uses less water than orchards, while its litter promotes infiltration and limits erosion; avocado roots are concentrated near the surface, and removing understory vegetation increases evaporation.
Spatial association does not prove that every orchard alone caused the entire loss, and the dataset ends in 2018. The analysis relies on sensors with regional resolution, its confidence interval reflects uncertainty and the paper calls for better inclusion of climate change; nevertheless, the convergence of moisture, land use, productivity and pond data signals a risk already affecting springs, households, subsistence farms and mountain forests.
The answer is not to eliminate a crop that supports thousands of jobs, but to govern its expansion and water use. Next steps should include enforcement against illegal clearing and extraction, watershed water budgets, export traceability, forest restoration and practices that keep soil covered; without limits, degradation may eventually undermine the future viability of avocado production itself.
