The world’s largest river is running low on water, threatening to spark a humanitarian crisis.
For several years, the Amazon River Basin (ARB) has been in a state of exceptional drought, driven by low rainfall and consistently high temperatures.
The river basin contains the world’s largest rainforest, making it a global hotspot of biodiversity and a key part of the global hydrological (water) and carbon cycle.
The river levels are reported to be at their lowest levels in over 100 years, putting an estimated 30 million people living in the Amazon basin across several nations, including Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador, at risk by disrupting transportation, isolating communities and killing wildlife.
Scientists believe climate change has exacerbated the usual dry-season conditions, leaving riverbeds dry with large beaches emerging, boats stranded, and aquatic animals beached.
Earlier this month, the Rio Negro, the largest left tributary of the Amazon, plummeted to a depth of 12.7 metres, according to the Geological Service of Brazil, a government agency. This is the shallowest depth recorded since measurements were first taken in 1902.
The river drains more than 10 percent of the water in the Amazon River Basin.
Researchers in the port city of Manaus fear water levels could continue to tumble as the dry season continues: “This is now the most severe drought in over 120 years of measurement at the Port of Manaus,” Valmir Mendonca, the port’s head of operations, told the Reuters news agency.
Some experts told local media the Rio Negro could fall below 12 metres before the end of the month. Friday’s measurements surpassed the record-low set last year, later in the dry season.
Other Amazon tributaries — including the Solimoes River, which intersects with the Rio Negro — have likewise seen historically low water levels.
Restaurant owner Erick Santos told the O Globo newspaper that businesses in his community of Puraquequara, situated along the Rio Negro, have been devastated by the drought. Basic food items are in short supply.
“Our revenue has dropped by 50 percent,” he told the paper. “On the weekend, it was common for people to jump into the water. Now everything is land.”
According to NPR’s State of the World, other villages have been forced to close their schools because it is too difficult for staff and students to get there.
Researchers have also reported finding freshwater dolphins dead along riverbanks due to stress from the drought.
The large river system powers significant portions of the affected countries’ energy through hydropower, with Brazil relying on hydropower for 80 percent of its electricity, Colombia 79 percent, Venezuela 68, Ecuador and Peru 55, and Bolivia 32, according to USaids in 2018.
In recent months, the Amazon rainforest has been grappling with below-average rainfall and man-made fires that have devastated the dense tree cover and disrupted the tropical biome. According to government reports from last month, as much as 59 percent of Brazil is suffering from the effects of the drought.
“This is the first time that a drought has covered all the way from the North to the country’s Southeast,” Ana Paula Cunha, a researcher at the National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters, said in September.
“It is the most intense and widespread drought in history.”