Damming the Rivers of the Amazon Basin

Overview

Journal Nature

Specialty Science

Date 2017 Jun 16

PMID 28617466

Citations 57

Authors

Edgardo M Latrubesse

Eugenio Y Arima

Thomas Dunne

Edward Park

Victor R Baker

Fernando M dHorta

Charles Wight

Florian Wittmann

Jansen Zuanon

Paul A Baker

Camila C Ribas

Richard B Norgaard

Naziano Filizola

Atif Ansar

Bent Flyvbjerg

Jose C Stevaux

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

More than a hundred hydropower dams have already been built in the Amazon basin and numerous proposals for further dam constructions are under consideration. The accumulated negative environmental effects of existing dams and proposed dams, if constructed, will trigger massive hydrophysical and biotic disturbances that will affect the Amazon basin's floodplains, estuary and sediment plume. We introduce a Dam Environmental Vulnerability Index to quantify the current and potential impacts of dams in the basin. The scale of foreseeable environmental degradation indicates the need for collective action among nations and states to avoid cumulative, far-reaching impacts. We suggest institutional innovations to assess and avoid the likely impoverishment of Amazon rivers.

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Transformative changes are needed to support socio-bioeconomies for people and ecosystems in the Amazon.

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One sixth of Amazonian tree diversity is dependent on river floodplains.

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