The most water-rich area on earth is experiencing its worst drought since records began. Ecologists warn that the Amazon could dry out – and then itself become a danger to the global climate.
When Elisângela Santos speaks of the Rio Tucumâ-Açu, a branch of the Amazon where she grew up, wide as a lake and lined with rainforest, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath: “This river gives me the feeling of freedom, “It gives me energy, it’s my place of peace. Here I feel like I’m connected to God.”
That’s why she invested her entire savings in a “Flutuante”, a house raft that she rents out to tourists. But when Santos opens her eyes, she sees a valley full of sandy and furrowed earth. The river is gone. And their houseboat stranded on the clay bottom. Because the Amazon is experiencing a once-in-a-century drought.
“It’s hard, it’s shocking,” says Santos. “Every year there is a dry season, but we have never experienced anything like this. 250 families live here, more than 10,000 people work in tourism here, but now everything is at a standstill.”
Water level dropped by 17 meters
The world’s most water-rich region is experiencing its worst drought since records began 120 years ago, confirms André Martinelli, chief Amazon hydrologist at Brazil’s Geological Survey. The water level of the Amazon has fallen by a full 17 meters.
The two mighty rivers that flow together to form the Amazon in the Brazilian metropolis of Manaus are carrying six times less water than in July, explains Martinelli, pointing to a dark spot high up on the quay wall. It itself stands on a wide strip of sand in the harbor basin; the two- to three-story passenger steamers that usually leave here are lying aground.
“The river determines our life here, everything runs on water. Now factories have had to stop production because the suppliers are no longer arriving,” says Martinelli, describing the situation. “Dozens of communities are cut off from the outside world and rising water temperatures have killed thousands of fish and more than 100 river dolphins. The drought is having enormous economic and social impacts.”
“There are no more fish”
Beans, rice, pasta, sugar: the civil protection authority of the municipality of Careiro da Várzea distributes almost a thousand food packages and large canisters of water by boat in one day. These are aid deliveries for the small settlements of river dwellers opposite Manaus, who live from farming and fishing.
Kelsima Oliveira waits in a long line with around 100 families and her three-year-old son. “We haven’t had tap water for three months, only water that we draw from the river, but it’s far away,” she says. “There are no more fish. And our plants, our vegetables that we grew, have withered.”
Previously by canoe, now on foot
Oliveira is seven months pregnant, but she hasn’t had a check-up in weeks. The trip to the doctor is too strenuous: she used to come by canoe across tributaries to the port on the Amazon. But where there was once water, there is now only mud.
She had to walk an hour and a half under the blazing sun to deliver groceries. Now neighbors are lifting the 23 kilo relief packages onto a three-wheeled delivery cart, which keeps getting stuck in the deep sand.
Is the Amazon drying out?
Scientists such as American biologist Philipp Fearnside, who lives in the Amazon, say that the El Niño climate phenomenon is currently intensifying the usual dry season. However, the consequences are being made worse by man-made climate change, and extreme weather phenomena are becoming more and more common, according to Fearnside: “Something has changed in the climate system since 1975: El Niño has occurred more frequently since then. We have to expect that we will see more and more severe weather phenomena in the future will experience droughts.”
Fearnside has lived in the Amazon since the late 1970s and researches climate change. As early as 2000, the ecologist warned that the largest rainforest in the world could continue to dry out. The so-called green lung would itself pose a threat to the global climate, says Fearnside.
“Droughts and forest fires cause forests to die faster than deforestation. And huge amounts of carbon are tied up in the rainforest and its soil,” explains Fearnside. “If even a fraction of this enters the atmosphere in the next few years, it would be a crucial element in crossing a tipping point at which global warming spirals out of control.”
Hoping for the water
Elisângela Santos watches the sunset reflected in small mud puddles on the terrace of her house raft. “We are suffering a lot from the situation,” she says. “Why is there so much deforestation? Why don’t people do more about it? If the Amazon is no longer green, there will be no more Amazon.”
Then she points to a small trickle. “The water is coming back,” she says with hope in her voice. She hopes that her raft will float on the water again at Christmas – until the next dry spell.