In many countries, including the US, France, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, and Australia, fracking has been partially banned or delayed on environmental concerns. Also known as hydraulic fracturing, fracking is a controversial oil and gas producing method that relies on injecting massive amounts of water, chemicals, and sand into the earth to break up rocks to free up oil and gas reserves buried deep underground.

Cities in California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Colorado, Hawaii, and New Mexico, have temporarily or permanently banned fracking. Last week, the city of Canandaigua in New York State, voted 8-0 to permanently ban it. In May, Santa Cruz became the first California County to ban fracking, and in November Colorado could become the first state to put fracking on the ballot.

Yet the government of Mexico, which has largely suppressed national debate on a highly unpopular energy reform that will end the state’s 75-year old control of the oil industry, has fully embraced fracking as an alternative to its declining energy production. Mexico, the third-largest exporter of crude oil to the US, has seen its oil output fall around 25 percent over the past decade.

According to the 2013 US Energy Information Administration survey, with 545 trillion cubic feet of shale gas, Mexico has the world’s sixth largest reserves. The Eagle Ford shale formation in Texas is believed to stretch hundreds of miles into Mexico, where it is known as the Burgos Basin.

But, while more than 5,400 wells have been sunk on the Texas side since 2008, Mexico has attempted fewer than 25. The government of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s has made exploiting these abundant shale gas reserves on a massive scale a key part of its energy overhaul expected to be passed by the end of this month.

Yet in the limited energy debate taking place in Mexico and the US there is a relevant area that has not received enough consideration: the externalities and geographic limitations of fracking in Mexico where the cost could be especially high. Fracking on a large scale requires several million gallons of water per well which could create conflicts with agriculture and basic fresh water needs in a country where 55 percent of the population receives water only intermittently, according to Mexico’s 2000 national census.

Central and northern Mexico - where the Eagle Ford shale formation extends - has already been the site of conflicts over water scarcity. In 2012, 350,000 head of cattle starved to death in the northern state of Chihuahua due to shortage of pasture caused by lack of water, and in 2010 the Mexican government launched an advertising campaign in Mexico City titled "The City May Run Out of Water" to raise awareness of the serious shortages.

Mexico’s total renewable water sources stand at about 132 trillion gallons each year. For the sake of comparison, the US’s 500,000 fracking sites currently consume roughly 36 trillion gallons of water to operate equal to 27.25 percent of Mexico’s total annual water supply. In addition, even more fresh water can be lost when methane and other toxic chemicals used in the liquid mixture leak from the system to contaminate surrounding groundwater.

Although energy companies can often drill water wells in non-potable aquifers, and can occasionally even use seawater, on its face the sheer volume of fresh water affected by fracking — coupled with the scarcity of that resource in Mexico — would seem to make the practice potentially far more problematic in Mexico than in other water-rich countries like the United States.

Mexican geologists and petroleum engineers told The Washington Post that they will worry about water later. They will bring a pipeline from the sea if they have to, or from wetter coastal regions, they said.

Aside from the scarcity of water, the increased seismic activity linked to hydraulic fracturing represents another source of danger only exacerbated by Mexico’s geography. Situated atop three of the tectonic plates that constitute the earth’s surface, Mexico is one of the most seismologically active regions on the planet, and has a long history of destructive earthquakes. Seismologists at Columbia University believe that several earthquakes in 2011, including one of 4.0 magnitude that hit Youngstown, Ohio on New Year’s Eve, could have been linked to the disposal of fracking wastewater.

None of this is to say that the employment of hydraulic fracturing to exploit Mexico’s shale gas potential would necessarily be a net loss to Mexico. After all fracking provides an opportunity to access vast quantities of otherwise inaccessible resources.

A good case in point is South Africa, a country that faced a similar cost-benefit decision in recent years (due to the arid climate of some regions, diverting water towards fracking has been particularly hard on many farmers.) Yet, the government ultimately lifted the moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, reasoning that the added benefit of up to 700,000 jobs and $19.56 billion injected into the economy ultimately make it worth the risk.

Debate on whether energy reforms in Mexico are worthwhile should not be limited to the potential threat to national sovereignty by opening the oil sector to private capital, but should also include whether increased productivity could ultimately be a self-defeating achievement when weighed against the environmental hazards.