425 Liters per Square Meter per Year: Industrial Roofs Also Produce Water

Rainwater harvesting would not be the only strategy to reduce pressure on conventional water sources. According to CONAGUA, Mexico had 3,809 industrial wastewater treatment plants in operation in 2022. While wastewater treatment seeks to return previously used water to the production cycle, rainwater harvesting replaces part of water demand with a resource that falls directly on industrial facilities. Both approaches pursue the same objective: reducing dependence on surface water and groundwater sources.

In this context, rainwater harvesting is also becoming part of the regulatory landscape. In Mexico City, for example, legislation requires new buildings—including industrial facilities—to incorporate rainwater harvesting systems into their architectural design and use harvested rainwater for applications that do not require potable-quality water. Although these requirements are not uniform across the country, they indicate that rainwater harvesting is increasingly becoming a design criterion for new developments.

That shift is also beginning to materialize in the market. According to FIBRA Danhos, at least one building within its Parque Industrial Cuautitlán I, delivered in 2024, incorporates systems for rainwater harvesting, infiltration, and reuse as part of its ESG strategy.

For now, these solutions are not yet the market standard. However, the combination of growing pressure on water resources, new regulatory requirements, and projects already incorporating rainwater harvesting systems suggests that water is beginning to emerge as another variable in real estate performance. In the future, water management capabilities may be evaluated alongside attributes such as location, connectivity, and power availability.

If that trend continues, the competitiveness of an industrial building will depend not only on what it stores beneath its roof, but also on what that same roof can contribute to its operations.

For more data and analysis on Mexico’s industrial real estate market, visit SiiLA Market Analytics or contact us at contacto@siila.com.mx.

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¹ Estimate prepared by SiiLA based on the Gross Leasable Area (GLA) of industrial markets in Aguascalientes, Ciudad Juárez, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Mexicali, Mexico City, Monterrey, Querétaro, Reynosa, Saltillo, San Luis Potosí, and Tijuana, totaling more than 107.7 million square meters, and the National Meteorological Service’s 1991–2020 climate normals. GLA was used as a proxy for potential roof area, given that most of the industrial inventory analyzed consists of one- or low-story buildings. The maximum theoretical rainwater harvesting volume was estimated by multiplying each market’s average annual precipitation by its corresponding roof area, after which a runoff coefficient of 0.80 was applied, consistent with the value recommended for metal roofs under Mexican standard NMX-AA-164-SCFI-2013 and used by the Mexican Institute of Water Technology (IMTA) in rainwater harvesting methodologies. This coefficient accounts for inherent harvesting losses, including runoff, evaporation, initial wetting, and splashing. The estimate represents annual physical harvesting potential rather than the volume actually stored or used, which depends, among other factors, on system design, storage capacity, treatment, operation, and the regulatory framework applicable to each facility.