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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Acknowledgements
This research was supported in part by NSF grants (FESD-1338694, EAR-1147954 and DDRI-1558446), a NASA grant (NAG5-6120), a National Geographic Society-Research and Exploration Grant (8855-10), LLILAS-Mellon, the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development-CNPq and the CAPES Foundation.
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E.M.L. initiated this research, conceived the multidisciplinary methodology, and coordinated the manuscript. All authors extensively contributed to the writing and analysis of results. E.M.L., E.P. and C.W. developed the database on dams. E.Y.A., C.W. and E.P. performed Geographic Information System analysis. E.P. performed remote sensing work.
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Latrubesse, E., Arima, E., Dunne, T. et al. Damming the rivers of the Amazon basin. Nature 546, 363–369 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22333
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