mexico s water scarcity problem is partly due to illegal abstraction whether abstraction without license or abstraction above licensed levels but even if only the legally licensed volumes were abstracted there would still be a problem because over the years the mexican governments have licensed abstraction rights for significantly higher volumes than available in the river basins and aquifers in order to address this issue conagua has put in place a specific programme programa de adecuacion de derechos de agua the implementation guidelines of which were issued in august the programme is designed to buy water rights from farmers in those irrigation districts where the licensed water rights exceed of water availability