Mexico City and the surrounding suburbs, known as the Valley of Mexico, sit on what once used to be five interconnected lakes that formed the heartland of the Aztec Empire. However, with the Spanish conquest and the subsequent draining of these lakes, the " most drastic reordering of the natural environment that just about any city has carried out" began. Now, suffering from a water shortage, the city extracts water from its aquifers more than twice as fast as they are replenished. As a result, the spongy clay on which the city is built dries up and compresses, causing it to sink. This is yet another example of the effects on water supplies of unchecked urban growth, shortsighted management and political inertia.
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