Many might look at the vast volumes of water flowing through the world ’s largest wetland organisation and think that it represent a vast untapped energy seed . But the dam construction boom currently spreading right across the Amazon basin may be have serious and far - reaching impacts , and could even causeentire mintage to die out .
There are currently plans in the pipeline to build 428 hydroelectric dam in the Amazon , with a further 140 already functional or being make . On the open , it seems like an idealistic way to acquire low - atomic number 6 vim , but in reality , it is not so dim-witted . While ecological surveys are carried out before each individual dam is constructed , there is no one look at the overall impact that all the projects will have on the wide of the mark ecosystem , and this could be a serious job .
“ The river and its individual objet d’art can not be separated out,”explainedVictoria Baker , co - author of a young subject inNaturelooking into these impact . “ That an single dam assessment can be sort out from the rest of the system is n’t scientifically valid . ”
The researcher found that there are many wide - reach effects that are due to each single decameter , and when looked at as a whole , reveal a troubling situation in which the integrity and tenacity of integral ecosystems – and the species that live within them – are shed into question .
The researcher depend at the turgid - exfoliation wallop that all the dam together have on the flow rate of the rivers , admit the land use change , erosion , overflow , and the neutering of deposit . This last effect is think to bethe most damaging , as the flow of sediment through and across the Amazon rainforest , its rivers , and the wetlands , is a vital cistron in the health and biodiversity of the basin .
As many of the proposed dike are situated upstream and in the foothill of the Andes , their encroachment on deposit will potentially be monumental . Many of the ecosystems downstream rely on the movement of this sediment through the system . For example , the tumid mangrove scheme in South America , find oneself along the coast of Brazil and at the oral cavity of the Amazon , is entirely dependent on the stream of silt from the Andes to the Atlantic .
With so many species within the Amazon rainforest indigenous to single regions and even individual rivers , change these surroundings could have calamitous results . The investigator warn that it could well lead to the extinguishing of C , if not thousands , of metal money from right across the region , and that in force management and assessment of hydroelectric construction needs to be taken into account .
