Sheinbaum Reviews Sargassum Monitoring in Cancún as Quintana Roo Shifts to Early Intervention

Cancún, Quintana Roo — President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo toured Quintana Roo’s Environmental and Sargassum Monitoring Center on Friday, reviewing the technology officials use to forecast when the macroalgae will reach the state’s beaches and to plan containment work before it makes landfall.

Governor Mara Lezama Espinosa accompanied the president on the visit. Lezama said the response now begins before the seaweed arrives on shore, relying on scientific data and technology to anticipate landfalls and organize cleanup crews.

Ten satellites, 140 beaches

The state monitoring center, housed inside Quintana Roo’s C5 security complex in Cancún, draws on imagery from 10 European Space Agency satellites to track conditions at more than 140 beaches. Staff there produce daily forecasts and maintain a color-coded alert system showing where sargassum is most likely to arrive.

The center opened in 2025 and combines satellite images with C5 security cameras, drones and field monitoring. It covers the coastlines of all 11 municipalities in the state and issues forecasts that guide cleanup work and the placement of containment barriers.

A heavy sargassum year

The visit comes during a particularly difficult year for Quintana Roo. Figures presented by the federal government estimate that between 40,000 and 90,000 tons of sargassum were drifting through the Mexican Caribbean each day during 2026, with roughly 10% of that total potentially landing on state beaches.

The problem has long since stopped being purely environmental. Mass arrivals turn the water brown, produce foul odors as the seaweed decomposes, and damage beaches, reefs and other ecosystems, while driving up operating costs for hotels and municipalities.

In July, tourism executives and officials acknowledged that sargassum has hurt the image of Mexican Caribbean destinations in a year also marked by reduced air connectivity and other problems that have cut into demand. Average hotel occupancy across the state’s main destinations stood at 59.6% during the first week of July.

Officials caution that sargassum alone does not explain the drop. Fewer flights, higher fares, exchange rates, perceptions of insecurity and the international economic climate have all been cited as factors. In Tulum, air passenger traffic fell 33% between January and July compared with the same period in 2025.

2 billion pesos pledged

Sheinbaum’s visit follows the July announcement of a 2 billion peso federal investment to strengthen the state’s sargassum strategy.

The program calls for more seaweed-collection vessels at sea, additional containment barriers and stronger beach cleanup. The first phase, worth 768.7 million pesos, aims to raise collection capacity from 1,227 to 1,870 tons per day.

Cancún, Playa del Carmen, Puerto Morelos, Tulum and Mahahual are the priority areas under the plan. The strategy also covers transport, final disposal and commercial use of the seaweed.

Federal and state officials argue that intercepting sargassum offshore reduces the volume that must later be cleared from beaches. The Quintana Roo government says it has spent more than 770 million pesos on the problem during the current state administration.

The monitoring center is the technological pillar of a shift away from a largely reactive approach — removing seaweed after it washes ashore — toward advance intervention based on forecasts, satellite tracking, barriers and at-sea capture.